


Fluttering (beta)

by RocRolWriter



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Minor Injuries, Thomas's friends make minor appearances, Witch!Thomas, all the Sides are pixies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23227030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocRolWriter/pseuds/RocRolWriter
Summary: Any kind of bad weather was a nightmare to a fairy - so when Roman is caught out in a storm, he's worried that he won't live to regret it.  Fortunately a friendly witch was on his way home at the same time...Update:now using "pixie" instead of "fairy".
Comments: 71
Kudos: 96





	1. The Storm

For a normal person, the sudden storm that blew in was an inconvenience but not much more; it was just heavy rain and swift, swirling winds. It was hard to stay dry with so much rain being tossed around, and even harder to walk in a straight line when the wind pulled at your clothes in first one direction and then another—but there was no lightning, so it wasn’t dangerous to be outside.

For a witch, the storm was more annoying in some ways and less annoying in others. Rain wasn’t a problem however it was falling when you could enchant your clothes to be waterproof, but the wind made it very risky to fly for anyone less than a Master at the art of broom-riding. Also, unless you had thought to enchant your books to be water- and windproof, you had to rely on memory for your spells and anything magical that might cross your path.

For a pixie, small enough to hide in a glove and with fragile wings, the storm was a disaster.

Roman had no idea where he was anymore; all he knew was that he was way off course, terribly bruised from the rain as well as soaked, and bitterly cold from both. All attempts to ride the wind were failing due to the rain, and all attempts to protect himself from the rain were failing due to the wind. This wasn’t a threat he could fight; in fact, he was becoming even more worried with every passing second that the next raindrop would be the one that finally knocked a wing off.

Logan was right—and that was something he’d never admit to the other pixie’s face. He should have stayed a lot closer to the grove, gathering nectar and pollen from the autumn flowers instead of looking for berries and adventure farther afield. Roman had already lost what little haul he’d managed to obtain, and he was probably going to die before he made it back home. Patton would cry.

No. Patton wouldn’t cry, because Roman would make it back home. He had to! He—

Another gust of wind hurled him into a…tree? It was too smooth to be a tree, though it was made of wood…whatever, of far more pressing concern was he felt his wings crumple against his back, and they were too soggy to push back out and catch him as he fell. He tumbled towards the ground, semi-conscious.

The last thing he saw before he blacked out were stones; too many, too close together, and too carefully patterned to be found anywhere in nature. His mind wasn’t working well enough to understand why.

The last thing he felt before darkness closed over him was not those stones, but something much softer.

* * *

Thomas straightened up, carefully balancing his sleeve. Some might consider robes to be a bit much, even for witches, but he liked how easy they were to enchant against bad weather—and the flowing sleeves were perfect for quickly catching something he didn’t dare trust to his hand.

Like the pixie he’d just scooped up. It had definitely been injured when it was blown into that signpost, and he didn’t want to add any more trouble to it or leave it to be trampled. Leading to him hurrying home with a pixie cradled in his cuff.

Wrestling the door open—and then closed again—with one hand was a challenge, but Thomas managed. Heaving a sigh, he carefully pulled the pixie out of his sleeve and held it up for inspection.

It—he—was a little different than the pixies Thomas usually saw in the shops. Those tended to range from deep blue to whiter-than-nature; this one was ruddy, like a human who worked in the sun most of the time (though still with a disturbing pallor on account of the cold). Shop pixies wore crude little dresses made from the scraps of handkerchiefs; this pixie was in breeches and a backless shirt, made of…well, who knew what. As for the wings, Thomas simply couldn’t tell if they were the same as or different than those of the shop pixies: they were too crumpled to tell.

The pixie twitched and moaned, hardly more than a tiny whistle of sound, and Thomas snatched his finger back from the wings out of fear that he’d inadvertently damaged them.

Now that he was safely home, it finally occurred to Thomas that he didn’t know how to help this injured pixie. Would the wings straighten out on their own as they dried, or did they have to be smoothed out first? Could he use his fingers to flatten them, or would that damage them? Would healing potions even work on pixies?

The pixie squirmed weakly, an attempt to escape that had less than no chance of success. It did spur the witch into doing something though.

Thomas raced into his workroom, laid a cloth on the desk, and carefully put the pixie on the cloth; after a moment’s consideration he emptied one of his wicker supply crates and put it over the pixie—it was large enough that he shouldn’t be able to move it himself in his current state, the poky ends of the twigs were either carefully wrapped away or on the outside of the crate so those wings wouldn’t be damaged any more, and the gaps in the twigs were large enough that the pixie could use them as windows but small enough that he couldn’t climb out through them.

He didn’t really want to trap the pixie; he just didn’t want him running around trying to escape, when in his current state he’d likely hurt himself.

“Please be all right,” Thomas whispered to the crate.


	2. Planning Phase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thomas learns the best way to heal an injured pixie, and Roman learns that some witches deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Roman slowly came back to full consciousness with the rumblings of a big voice thrumming in his body. He was lying on a bed of warm, dry moss…

No. Wait. Dry moss is stiff and scratchy, soft moss is wet and cold. Where is he?

Roman sat up and looked around. He was in a wooden cage, and the moss was a blanket of some kind. The cage was in a room with shelves, and the shelves were covered in bottles and jars with labels he couldn’t read; across the room was a window, or at least something that could be a window, but it was covered. On the wall next to him was something like the most perfect pool of water, with a face looking out of it, and a human in witch’s robes was talking to the face.

A witch. Roman was prisoner of a _witch._

“…And what I have in greatest supply right now is phoenix ash. Will that work?” the witch was saying.

Work for what, Roman wondered. He knew what phoenixes were of course—one had a nest near the grove, inside a big tree that was apparently _very_ resistant to flames, and the family would periodically collect its ashes when it was out foraging. Roman himself used the ashes as an exfoliant; he’d been delighted when one of the side effects of such a use turned out to be a glorious tan, since pixies didn’t naturally darken in the sun. It needed periodic renewing, sadly.

 **“Depends on a couple things,”** the image replied.

“Like…?”

**“First of all, are you sure it’s a sun pixie? I mean it _probably_ is, considering you saw it trying to fly and you also said it seems to be suffering for being wet, but are you _really_ sure? If it’s a shade pixie, it’ll recover on its own with minimal assistance _and_ phoenix ash will be detrimental.”**

The witch looked at Roman, who tried to shuffle back into a corner of the cage without crawling on his own wings. By the _sound_ of things they were planning to heal him, but who knew with humans? _Especially_ witches.

“Okay you got me there. All the ones I’ve seen at the shop looked about the same, and while this guy looks different, I can’t tell how much of that is from being a wild pixie who got thrown around and how much is…like…species. In other news he’s awake now.” The witch waggled his fingers at the cage in a little wave.

**“That’s a relief at least. You could ask him yourself what he is, but I don’t know if he’ll answer you; pixies tend to be suspicious of humans. Well, second, phoenix ash tends to add a drying effect to the potions it’s added to—which would be good, if his wings were only a little wet, but by the sound of things he’s thoroughly soaked. Going from _that_ wet to completely dry too fast will make his wings crispy, and they’ll break at the slightest pressure, and the poor guy will be even worse off.”**

The witch made a little whimpering noise.

Roman silently agreed, even though he was still suspicious of this witch’s motives. Yes he was a sun pixie, and yes he yearned for heat right now, but he was smart enough to realize that he probably didn’t want to coat his limp, soggy wings in something that would turn them into autumn leaves. Particularly the ugly brown ones— _focus._

**“What I would recommend, especially since he’s also bruised up, is phoenix _water._ It has stronger healing properties, and doesn’t dry out what you use it on as quickly.”**

What the heck was phoenix water? Besides a more potent restorative apparently. Logan had only ever brought home ashes, and if he was unbelievably lucky, a feather or two.

“Phoenix water, got it.” The witch considered. “Actually I _don’t_ think I got that. Dagnabbit. It’s not as simple as just mixing phoenix ashes in water, is it?”

The image barked out a short laugh. **“People have tried; the only real successes were the ones who had a little phoenix water to begin with and were just trying to make _more_ of it by adding the ashes and water. We’d be the wealthiest witches in the entire kingdom if we could figure out what magic was missing, because dear god is the stuff expensive. And that’s if you can find it being sold somewhere.”**

The witch eyed the image hopefully. “Do you…?”

**“Yes I have some. Not a lot, but you said you had ashes already—I can bring my bottle over there and help you mix up enough phoenix water for your new pixie friend. And if you set aside a little of the mix, you’ll be able to make more as you need it.”**

“You’re the best!”

 **“Heh, thanks; I’ll be there in like, ten minutes probably—depends on if the wind’s died down.”** The image rippled and the whole pool glowed briefly, and when the light faded only the witch’s own face was reflected there.

The witch pushed back from the table he was sitting at and lowered down so he was looking through the cage at Roman. “Uh…hi…sorry about the cage. I’ll take it away as long as you promise not to try and…no. Promise me that you’ll think about if you physically _can_ do something before you try and do it. No sense in you falling off the desk and breaking your leg because you can’t catch yourself.”

Roman blinked. That was…not entirely unexpected. He slowly nodded; realistically, if he tried to escape in this condition, he _would_ get hurt worse.

The witch took the cage off and tossed it aside. “You can call me Thomas.”

“…Thomas. Hello…you can call me…” Roman puffed out his chest. “…Prince.”

* * *

That was probably not his name, but Thomas would let it slide. He’d been cheating by just saying “call me” without confirming that Thomas really was his name, and he could hardly blame the pixie for being a lot more careful. “Can I get you anything while we wait for my friend? Some food? Also why were you out in a storm?”

Prince sighed. “If you _must_ know, I was gathering berries. And yes, I would like something sweet.”

“I have strawberries. Would that work?”

For a second there was a look of absolute longing on Prince’s face, before it was quickly guarded. “I suppose that will do.”

 _What, are strawberries a rare delicacy?_ Thomas concealed a chuckle as he left his workroom and went to the cold box.

Once he opened the drawer with the strawberries, he hesitated; the berries were huge. Not so much for Thomas, but for Prince they would be as big as prize-winning pumpkins. How would he eat these?

Considering his options, Thomas finally located a strawberry that he _thought_ about the equivalent of a big meal (it was perhaps as big as the pixie’s head, maybe a little larger), and carefully sliced it up before bringing it back balanced in a teaspoon.

Prince was still there, amazingly enough, though he’d wandered off the cloth and was trying to examine himself in the mirror Thomas had used to call Joan. He looked up as Thomas entered.

“Your strawberry, sire,” Thomas teased gently, putting the spoon on the desk with a mock bow.

Prince waved like the behavior was his due—though the way he moved his head as he approached the spoon, he seemed to also be rolling his eyes in acknowledgement that he was being teased. He didn’t even bother hiding his enjoyment as he picked up a slice of strawberry and bit into it.

Thomas sat at the desk and studied Prince. “So you guys do eat berries, huh? The Sorcerer’s Source catalog just says pixies eat sugar water.”

“That is an excellent way to develop thrum-back,” Prince said disdainfully—with the air of one who was quoting someone else. “Of course we also gather nuts and seeds, and sometimes we hunt insects. What is this ‘sorcerer’s source’?”

Thomas scratched his head, embarrassed. “The Sorcerer’s Source is a…very large magic shop. They have some of everything a witch could want to make potions and talismans. The prices are ridiculous though, a phoenix feather costs nearly twice there what it would cost at Embers and Ashes, which is a smaller and more specialized shop.” He paused. “I mean even at Embers and Ashes phoenix feathers are pretty expensive, but still.” Phoenix feathers were notoriously difficult to keep intact, hence the high price regardless of where they were sold.

“What, specializing makes things less expensive?”

“Huh? Oh, uh…sort of. Since Embers and Ashes focuses on magics of fire and earth, and especially on materials that have both those magics—like phoenix ashes, along with some other things—that means they’re experts at obtaining those materials. So they have an easier time keeping those things stocked, so they can afford to price them a little lower than you can find them anywhere else. I like it much better there than at Sorcerer’s Source because it’s…quieter.” Thomas shrugged sheepishly. “I have social anxiety; large crowds are kind of hard.”

Prince seemed to be thinking. Then he frowned and looked up. “Wait, Sorcerer’s Source sells pixies?”

Thomas blinked. “Oh. Uh.” That _would_ be the logical conclusion, wouldn’t it? If there was information in their catalog on how to care for pixies, even if that information was inaccurate or incomplete, it would at the very least make sense that they stocked pixies. “Yeah, I…even when I do have to go to Sorcerer’s Source, I usually try to avoid that section. It…upsets me, seeing all those pixies trapped in cages with no room to fly…and I can’t afford to buy them all to set them free, and even if I could I would just be telling that keeper that there’s a market and he’ll go get _more,_ but I also feel guilty leaving them there.” Thomas took a breath and shook his head.

Prince jumped to his feet, brandishing the spoon. “Fight the ruffian! Steal them away!” Then he promptly fell over again, apparently dizzy from having moved too fast.

Thomas snorted a laugh. “Maybe if I could figure out a way to do it without getting caught, Princey. No, the _legal_ way to rescue all those pixies is just to never spend money at that stall and encourage my friends to boycott them as well. With no money coming in, they’ll have to close down.” He thought for a minute. “Though, there are some spells and talismans that _require_ pixie dust…that’s like half the reason there’s a market for you guys. But there’s gotta be a way for all parties to benefit here.”

“You should talk to Lo-ah…” Prince choked slightly, pushing on under Thomas’s inquisitive gaze, “Lo-gic! Logic…a pixie I live with. He’s very smart; he keeps track of when all the flowers will have the most nectar, he calculated the _exact_ territory and routines of our phoenix neighbor…”

“You guys are neighbors to a phoenix? Do you get along with it?”

“What? No, no,” Prince waved his hand dismissively, “I admire that terrifyingly beautiful bird for sure, but if it knew we were nearby it would try to eat us.”

Thomas stared. He had known that phoenixes were omnivores, but it hadn’t occurred to him that they might consider pixies food. And Princey here was just…so calmly accepting that threat to his existence that he was basically waving it off.

“The point is, if anyone can figure out a way to improve pixie/witch relations, it’ll be Logic.”


	3. Phoenix Force

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the witches set to work turning a little phoenix water into a lot of phoenix water, and Talyn saves two more pixies from becoming snacks.

Joan was as good as zir word: approximately nine minutes after shutting off the Reflection Connection, ze was knocking on Thomas’s front door.

“Storm’s about over,” ze reported as a greeting.

Thomas looked past Joan as he waved zem in. “So it is; where’s Talyn?”

“Scouting the forest; you know, checking the damage. Also since the storm itself kinda blew in out of nowhere, ze’s trying to figure out if it was magical in origin.”

“You do that sort of thing together usually, right?” Thomas half-led Joan back to his workroom; Joan knew where it was, but it was considered good manners to not just go barging into another witch’s workroom unescorted.

“Yeah, and I’ll be catching up with zem after this. Ze said that ze could handle zirself alone for the twenty minutes it’ll take to brew this thing.” Joan looked around the workroom and smiled when ze located Princey by the mirror. “Hey there; how are you doing?”

“A prince does not complain,” Princey began with over-the-top dignity. Then he shrugged and added, “I happen to be quite cold and sore.”

“Well, let’s get to work on that.” Joan pulled a bottle out of zir pocket and nodded for Thomas to get his cauldron.

“So there is actual ‘brewing’ to this?” Thomas asked as he pulled out the smaller of his two cauldrons. “Is this fine, or do we need the bigger one?”

Joan looked at the shelves of supplies. “The little one’s fine—unless you actually _have_ the bottles and shelf space for storing four gallons of phoenix water.” Smirking at Thomas’s sheepish giggle ze added, “And yes, we’re going to need to boil this mixture in order to activate it. Here, put the kettle on the burner and start her up.”

Starting up the burner took a couple of minutes; while Thomas did that, Joan poured zir bottle of sparkling rose-tinted water into the cauldron. It was about a cup.

“When do we start adding other stuff?” Thomas asked.

“Depends on if we’re putting the ashes and water in separately or mixed together like false phoenix water. Phoenix ash can be added immediately, but water needs to wait until the mix is boiling; on the other hand, if we mix the ashes and water first and _then_ add it, the phoenix water just needs to be hot.”

Thomas got out a jar and opened it to look inside. “There’s maybe a quarter left in here. Would it be okay to add water in the jar and shake it up? Since I’d have to wash the jar anyway…”

Joan looked over Thomas’s shoulder. “That’s fine. Don’t fill it all the way to the top or you won’t have room for a good shake.”

Princey hopped to the counter with the sink to watch Thomas fill the jar, his antenna twitching curiously. “What _is_ phoenix water, anyway? I’ve never known our neighbor to even drink; my buddy Logic says it gets all the water it needs from its food, but I…”

“Back up,” Joan interrupted. “There’s a phoenix in the woods near here?”

Thomas shrugged. “I didn’t actually ask how far the wind carried Princey. Could be the nearby woods, could be miles away.” He screwed the lid back on the jar tightly and started shaking it.

Joan scowled in thought. “It _couldn’t_ be miles away; not with how that storm appeared.”

“Is a phoenix neighbor as bad for humans as it is for pixies?” Princey asked, raising his hand.

“Right after a storm? Oh yeah.” Joan pulled out a compact and started a communication spell. “They hate bad weather, and while their usual response to it is to hunker down and wait for it to blow over, once it _has_ blown over they’ll go on a fiery rampage reminding everyone how much they hate storms. The worse the storm is, the worse their tantrum.”

Thomas looked up uneasily. “This storm wasn’t _that_ bad, was it? I was still able to walk across town in it…”

“Mostly I’m just—hey Talyn.”

**“Wassup Joan? You done already?”**

“No, we’ve barely started. I’m calling to let you know there might be a phoenix in those woods—and you know phoenixes after a storm.”

**“Cranky and hungry, right?”**

“Yeah, and it’s not gonna want plants after that rain; be on the lookout.”

**“Noted, anything else?”**

Before Joan could say anything Princey let out a cry. “Logic! Morality! If it’s hungry and won’t want plants, it might go after them!”

**“Was that the pixie?”**

“Yeah, he and a couple of buddies apparently live near to that phoenix…”

**“What kind of lunatic lives next door to the most dangerous creature that they are worst equipped to fight off?”**

“It wasn’t _there_ when we first settled in the grove,” Princey protested. “It showed up maybe a season ago, when it was too hot for us to pack up and move, so Logic was monitoring the situation!”

“They’re probably fine!” Thomas reassured quickly, putting the jar down and smiling at Princey. “Pixie houses are supposed to be really hard for predators to spot, right? So as long as they stay inside, they’ll be safe!”

Princey shuffled uncomfortably.

“Prince?”

“Our house was well-hidden…from the local predators…but I’m not sure how well it was hidden from a phoenix; the local predators are nothing like phoenixes.”

**“Princey? Was your house a ball of twigs and silk in a hotwood tree?”**

Princey looked towards Joan’s compact, his lip trembling. “Yes…?”

Joan grimaced. “I think your choice of words filled everybody in this room with a sense of foreboding, Talyn; ‘was’?”

 **“The storm brought the tree down; hate to say it, but this house doesn’t look habitable anymore.”** There was a rustling. **“I don’t see any pixies trapped in here, so either they weren’t in the house when it broke or they managed to--”**

A screech cut over the line, making Thomas jump.

“Talyn?”

 **“I found the phoenix—and I think I found the pixies. Gotta go!”** The connection cut.

“ _Call zir back!_ ” Princey wailed, leaping up—and needing to be caught by Thomas as his wings failed and he nearly plummeted to the floor.

Joan put the compact away. “Ze’ll call back once ze’s gotten your friends away from the phoenix.” Ze thought for a moment and chuckled. “Actually, knowing Talyn, ze’ll probably fly them straight here to _show_ you that they’re okay.”

Thomas chuckled weakly. “That sounds like Talyn.” He carefully set Princey back on the table and retrieved the jar. “Now let’s finish brewing this.”

* * *

This phoenix was bigger than Talyn; it wasn’t faster than zir broomstick though, and ze was easily able to pass it. There had been a flash of blue, where did it go…

 _There!_ Two pixies, one clinging to the other one’s feet, both trying as hard as they could to outfly something much bigger than they were. The one in front had bright blue wings that glittered like they were covered in stars, while the one in back had pale blue wings with more of a soft overall glow than a glitter.

Talyn flew across the phoenix’s path, using zir hat as a net to scoop up both pixies (getting a high-pitched shriek from one of them). Levelling back out, ze looked into the hat at the trembling wings of morning and evening sky. “Which one of you’s Logic and which one is Morality?”

Both pixies startled hard and stared up at zir—the one with pale wings blurted out an answer first, sounding almost cheerful. “Me! I’m Morality!”

The other one was more pragmatic—and a little more suspicious. “Who are you? How do you know those names?”

The phoenix’s angry screech made it very clear that having a conversation _here_ was a bad idea. “We’ll talk later—unless you’d _rather_ be phoenix food.” Talyn put the hat on and tied the chinstraps, essentially trapping both pixies on top of zir head, and started flying away from the phoenix. Ze’d be able to outrun it—

The heating of the air around zir was zir only warning, and ze side-slipped just in time to avoid a blast of fire. This resulted in zir losing some of zir speed, and they had to swerve again to avoid a snapping beak.

Tiny, scratchy claws dug at zir scalp; it felt like one or both pixies had decided zir hair was a safer place to be than zir hat, which, it probably was.

“Okay, let’s take stock here.” Talyn looked around through zir flight goggles. “I’m faster than the phoenix but not its fire—and since I’m not fireproof either I have to keep dodging, which slows me down.” Ze barrel-rolled to avoid another fire bolt, narrowly avoiding impact with the ground—and looking ahead, ze saw a new problem: the apex predators _native_ to these woods were crawling out of their burrows, stretching their elaborate jaws in terrifying toothy yawns.

“Great; polymaws. If I fly any lower than like four feet they’ll snap at me, but any higher and I’ll risk smacking into tree branches.” Polymaws hate fire and will go back into hiding when the phoenix gets close, but since Talyn is trying to stay _ahead_ of the phoenix ze’ll still encounter all of them before the phoenix gets close enough to really spook them.

And there were no convenient holes in the canopy large enough for them to escape through.

“Here goes nothing.” Talyn shot through the middle of the pack, watching their movements carefully and veering away from their snaps. As a bonus of going through instead of around, since they’re _more_ sensitive to fire than ze is, their reaction to an incoming fire bolt was enough of a warning that _ze_ could dodge.

It was still an extraordinary lot of dodging. Left to avoid flame, right and up to avoid teeth, down to avoid an errant branch—never more than a second to react. The poor pixies were probably seasick up there, getting jolted around and unable to see where they were going.

Talyn shot out of the woods and into town way too fast and had to backbend hard on zir broom to avoid slamming zir face into a sign; causing them to fly up over the rooftops. Ze barely had time to wonder if entering a land of stone buildings would dissuade the phoenix when it was right behind them again, taking advantage of leaving the forest to really stretch its wings.

_There! Thomas’s house!_

No way was ze landing and knocking on the front door though; the phoenix was too close. Time to get creative.

Kicking zir legs forward to hold the broom’s knobby head with zir feet, ze waved cheekily back at the gaining phoenix. “Bye birdie, it’s been fun but I’m dropping out now!” Then ze grabbed the broom under its bristles and gave it a hard jerk, throwing zir weight forward at the same time.

For an instant, ze and zir broom were standing upright in the air. Then they dropped straight down—

Into Thomas’s chimney.

The phoenix tried to dive after zir, but what had been a slightly tight squeeze for Talyn was too narrow for anything but the head and neck of the large bird—and the blast of ashes and soot up the chimney back into its face was finally enough to make it decide to look for easier prey elsewhere. It pulled itself back out, hacking and ruffling its crest feathers, and flew away with an irritated screech.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dramatic finale of this chase always makes me think of the finale of "One Jump Ahead" from Aladdin. (and I made the mistake of telling my sister and she started hassling me to hurry up and finish writing this chapter so she could read it, lol)
> 
> If anyone would like to see the phoenix and polymaws, let me know and I'll try to draw them; I only have an approximate idea of what either of them look like though, so it might take a while for me to finish their respective artworks. I have _more_ of an idea what the pixies themselves look like, so if anyone would like to see Roman, Logan and Patton, let me know that too! ^_^


	4. Reunions and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Princey finally gets his bath, and new information unlocks a new mystery to solve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't do it. I tried for a chapter, and I just can't do it. They/their/them are _plural_ pronouns, I have to use something else for a singular nonbinary person. I _know_ Thomas uses they/their/them for Joan, and probably Talyn (didn't know Talyn was nonbinary until a short while ago), but _I can't_ use the same pronouns for one singular person _and_ a group of two or more people. Not in writing (you want me to _say_ they/their/them for nonbinary, I can). You're getting ze/zir as pronouns for Joan, Talyn, and anyone else who is confirmed nonbinary. I'm sorry, but I have to write in a way I'm actually comfortable with so that I can focus on plot; please don't ask me to sacrifice the quality of my story just so you can have the pronouns you want. (I guess you can tell me if I'm using ze/zir correctly, and if there are any more variations that would be more appropriate in certain situations? They're fun pronouns to use, but I'm not familiar with how they work. Just please be polite about it.)

“It’s better to bottle phoenix water while it’s still hot…” Joan carefully tipped the cauldron, using the spout on its rim to refill zir bottle from the new mix.

Thomas held out his own bottle—only to nearly drop it when a muffled boom rattled the house.

Princey spun around to stare at the door. “What was that?”

Joan chuckled and took Thomas’s bottle. “Probably Talyn; wanna go let zir in?”

“Yes!”

Thomas laughed and held out his wrist to the enthusiastic pixie. “Ze was probably talking to me, Princey—but sure, you can come along.”

Princey quickly and cheerfully climbed up Thomas’s sleeve, undeterred by the human’s movement as he left the workroom.

“Talyn?” Thomas called, looking around to see if he could pinpoint the noise.

“Here!” The voice echoed from the fireplace, along with some extra thumps. “Can you open the damper? There’s not a lever inside here!”

Thomas choked on his laughter as he approached the fireplace. “Sure, give me a second.” After a moment of searching he found the gear that operated the damper and turned it.

Once the damper pulled out of the way a very sooty Talyn dropped down into the fireplace—but surprisingly little soot that wasn’t already on zir. “Phoenixes don’t like chimney sweeps apparently. Here,” ze angled zir broom out, “Give my robes a couple whacks from there, would you? Unless you don’t mind my tracking soot everywhere.”

Actually laughing now, Thomas took the broom and started smacking Talyn with the bristles—trying to hit hard enough to knock the soot off without causing any injury.

After a few minutes Talyn judged zir robes “good enough” and ducked out of the fireplace, showing that the only non-sooty part of zir face was a perfect silhouette of zir flight goggles. Ze squinted at the pixie clinging to Thomas’s shoulder. “Ah, you must be the Prince I heard over the pocket mirror.” A flick of zir fingers and zir hat’s chinstrap was untied, “It’s a pleasure to meet you sir,” and ze lifted zir hat off in a grand salute that ended with clutching it to zir chest.

The point to the salute, clearly, was to show the two pixies tangled in zir hair and blinking in the sudden light.

Princey cheered and waved his arms. “Padre! Teacher!”

The lighter-winged pixie looked up and cheered as well. “Princey, you’re all right!” Fighting his way out of the tangles, he zipped over to hug the injured pixie—basically ignoring the fact that he and Princey were standing nearly sideways on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Mostly, yes. The witches here are brewing up a medicinal bath for me—oh,” Princey looked at the other pixie, “Logic? Can you think of any reason why I _shouldn’t_ take a swim in phoenix water?”

Logic was in the process of extricating himself from Talyn’s hair more carefully than Morality had, but at Princey’s words he paused and looked up. “Phoenix _water?_ ”

Morality cocked his head curiously. “I didn’t know phoenixes liked water baths!”

“They really don’t,” Talyn spoke up, “They’re sensitive to water. They’ll take a couple of swims for rejuvenation right up in the prime of their lives and that’s it. Between how rarely they get in the water, and how hard it is to even find their bathtub of choice, phoenix water is _insanely_ pricy.”

“But, it’s a better healing solution,” Joan called from the workroom. “And by the way we’re ready for His Little Highness back here!”

“Right.” Thomas looked at Logic. “Last chance. Any reason Princey shouldn’t…”

“Bathwater infused with gales and flames; two magical forms that we pixies are highly sensitive to.” Logic fluttered off Talyn’s head and smoothed his antenna. “I would be very reluctant to submerge myself in such water, and so should Morality.”

Talyn looked up, cocking an eyebrow. “Is that a yes or a no for Princey?”

“ _Princey,_ in all his foolhardy recklessness, has been infusing himself with phoenix magic ever since we started collecting the ashes of our neighbor; I’m reasonably certain he has built up a resistance to that which would normally be considered high-risk. Not enough to survive a direct encounter with a phoenix, or any other creature of fire or air,” with a glower at Princey, who tried hard to act like he’d not given any thought whatsoever to challenging something dangerous, “but a simple bath ought to be fine. Perhaps don’t leave him in it for too long.”

“You’ve been doing whaaat,” Thomas asked, not really _of_ Princey as just in sort of his general direction, “no wonder you have a tan.”

“Yeah, pixies don’t tan without magic help, kiddo,” Morality confirmed with a friendly smile.

Talyn made shooing motions at Thomas. “Let’s go give him his bath then.”

As a group they went into the workroom, where the phoenix water had been poured into a bowl and Joan greeted them waving a large slotted spoon. “So I figure we stick Princey’s wings through the gaps in here and lower him in?”

Logic shrugged. “That’s probably the easiest way to do it. Morality and I can assist—you humans might be a bit much for handling damaged wings.” Drifting over to Princey, he took one of his hands while Morality grabbed the other, and the two of them carefully flew the injured pixie over to Joan’s spoon—the bowl of which turned out to be large enough for Princey to sit in, as long as he dangled his legs out. They got his wings through the slots with no trouble, and then darted clear.

Joan rested the handle of the spoon on the edge of the bowl, holding Princey above the shimmering liquid. “You ready?”

Nodding quickly, Princey laid back in the spoon and covered his face with his hands, using his feet to grip the handle.

Joan lowered the pixie into the phoenix water, lifting him back up almost as soon as he submerged completely. “That should be enough.”

Thomas blinked. “Wait, that’s it?”

“It’s _phoenix_ water. Fire and air. And a pixie with heightened resistances is still a pixie. Better to not take any longer than we need to.” Joan moved Princey back to the towel and carefully tipped him out of the spoon onto it. “Do you have any herbs? Probably would help for the aftercare.”

Both the other pixies rushed over to Princey as the spoon was moved away and started helping him pat the residual phoenix water off.

Thomas looked around as though half-expecting a jar of herbs to appear on a shelf. “Maybe?” Then he jerked around in surprise and stared at Talyn. “Wh-Talyn, you have something in your hair.”

Talyn patted zir hair. “Did one of the pixies throw up after all?”

“It doesn’t look like vomit; unless pixie vomit is white.” Thomas went back to looking around his workroom. “I have a…carding brush around here, where is it…?”

Logic looked up at Thomas’s words—and then at Morality. “You didn’t.”

“I was panicking!” Morality protested helplessly.

Thomas found his carding brush and went over to Talyn. “Hold still…” he carefully tugged at zir pink-dyed locks to isolate the foreign object, and then tried to snag it up with the brush. “…Okay, got it!” He showed Talyn what was caught in the bristles.

“Huh…is that silk?”

Now that it was out of Talyn’s hair, they could all see that it wasn’t pure white; it was tinted a faint yellow-green. But it did form very fine threads, and when Thomas poked it with a fingertip it was very soft and smooth.

Joan came over to look. “Huh.” Ze looked back at the pixies; Morality looked embarrassed, while Logic looked cross. “I didn’t know pixies made silk.”

Morality tapped his lips with a claw and made a shrugging motion at Logic, as if to say, _well, the bird’s flown the coop so why bother locking the cage?_

Thomas glanced back and forth between the two standing pixies. “What, were we not supposed to know that?”

Logic sighed heavily. “I’m…pleasantly surprised you didn’t already know that actually, given humans’ penchant for dissecting things to find all the parts. But no, we were hardly going to give your kind a shopping list of all the things our bodies could produce that witches could then steal for their potions and spells.”

An awkward silence fell over the workroom. Then Thomas pulled the bit of silk off the carding brush and dropped it on the desk a little in front of Morality. “Nice trick. Can you guys make webs too?”

“Oh!” Morality grabbed up the silk, which in his arms was about enough for a towel. “…Webs? You mean like a, a…” he shuddered violently enough to scatter dust from his wings.

Logic took up the explanation with another, softer sigh. “We _can_ ; however, while the making of silk is a simple reflex, the making of a _web_ is a skill that must be _learned._ Morality prefers the construction of garments over anything more elaborate.”

Talyn smiled affectionately. “Afraid of spiders?”

“Creepy creatures of death,” Morality muttered in response.

“The last time you flew into a spiderweb it broke under your weight,” Logic protested. “We are smaller than humans, yes, but not by so very much that the local spiders are actually a threat!”

While the two pixies argued and Princey slowly picked himself up and tried to flap his wings, Thomas got a thoughtful look on his face. He went to the window and peered up into the eaves.

Joan came up next to him. “What’cha thinking, Thomas?”

“Remember my midterm last year?”

“Vaguely; that was the only time you didn’t want an A.”

That got Logic’s attention. “Shouldn’t one always try their best in the realm of academia?”

“And I usually do. But that midterm…” Thomas shook his head. “We were all told to make enchanted trinkets, and _what_ trinket we had to make was randomly assigned; if I’d gotten a different one, I’d have tried harder for that A.”

“I had to make a Silver Wing for my enchanted-accessories midterm; that was two years ago,” Talyn commented. “What was yours, Thomas? I was out of town last year.”

“An amulet called Saving Grace.”

“Doesn’t that need…” Talyn’s eyes widened and she stared at the three pixies. “ _Oh._ ”

“Yup. I didn’t want an A that bad.”

“What was so bad about it? What’s a Saving Grace?” Princey demanded.

“It’s a healing item; it gets its name from how it’s supposed to save you from certain death—though it can only be used _that_ way one time, and then it breaks.” Thomas glanced around at the three pixies. “Thing is, one of the most important components for it is pixie wings.”

All three pixies jolted in response to that; eyes widened, antennae pointing up, wings flattening down (as best they could in Princey’s case).

“As I’m sure Princey might be able to imagine, given what we talked about before even Joan got here, the idea of mutilating a pixie for a _trinket_ really upset me. I was also uncomfortable with coming out and saying ‘hey, this is wrong’ though, so although I had some substitutions in mind to use instead, I still had to make it look like I did use pixie wings. Which…” Thomas shrugged, “…was harder than I thought. I couldn’t draw pixie wings to save my life. So…”

Princey stood up and stared. “You went to that Sorcerer’s Source and bought a pixie!”

Thomas nodded. “I figured I’d buy a pixie, trace its wings, and then let it go. The pixie gets freedom and I get to make my cruelty-free amulet.”

Morality hugged his silk bundle tighter and let his wings bounce back up. “Aww, that’s so nice of you!”

“Yes…” Logic seemed a little less sure, “provided you didn’t accidentally injure the pixie while trying to obtain your template.”

“I was _so_ careful. And he was still able to fly when I was done, so, probably? Just…” Thomas looked out the window again. “I’m not sure he really left.”

There was a tangle of webs above the window.

Logic fluttered to the window and peered up. “Ah. Yes, it would appear that those strands are thicker than spider silk.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Talyn looked out the window. “Why would a pixie stay so near to a witch’s house?”

“He might not still be living there,” Logic pointed out, “it’s possible that he actually was injured slightly by your ministrations, or simply weary from so long as a prisoner, and chose to ‘camp out’ until he had sufficiently recovered to make a true departure.”

Joan looked at Logic. “Well, none of us knew pixies made silk until today; do those look like year-old webs?”

“It is difficult to tell through the glass.” Then he wobbled unsteadily in the sudden breeze as Thomas opened the window. “Goodness, warn a fellow next time.” He rested on the side of the frame and looked more carefully. “…Difficult to say…at least some of those strands appear fresh…”

Thomas shrugged, baffled. “But if he’s there, why would he choose to stay?”

Logic thought for a moment, and then reached a decision. “Morality, watch over Prince for me.” He took wing again as Morality called an acknowledgement. “The only logical way to answer this question is to go forth and see for myself.” And with that he darted out the window.


	5. What's in a Name?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan meets the pixie Thomas bought last year, and the power of a name is discussed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One name in particular isn't going to be said yet, but let's be realistic: we all know who it is. ;)

Whether it was a pixie or not, _something_ was above those webs; it didn’t smell like dust or mold. It did smell a bit strange for a pixie though.

One look at the webs above his head made it clear that Logan would not merely be flying straight up: too tangled and dense. A narrow gap in the silk right next to the wall seemed to be the only way in, so he landed on the wall and started climbing. He folded his wings down as tightly as they would go, but their leading edges still brushed the border as he slipped through.

“My apologies for the intrusion, but, is anyone up here?” Logan stood on the wall and looked around. Greenish-white webs choked a meter-wide stretch of eave, turning it into what appeared to be a labyrinth; cocoons hung here and there, each large enough to be a small room. Logan almost stepped off the wall onto the webs proper, but then realized that he didn’t know anything about the pixie that lived here. If it was a night pixie…

Well. Logan had only met _one_ night pixie in his life. Judging all night pixies off the behavior of one would hardly be fair. He didn’t even know if _that_ night pixie always behaved in that fashion, since the encounter had been brief (according to Roman, that behavior was typical, but Roman himself was very dramatic and prone to exaggeration).

Regardless, a pixie of either race who was also a former captive would likely be rather paranoid and lay traps in the webbing; without knowing where was safe to step, Logan was better off staying on the relatively silk-free wall and waiting for the pixie to come out.

“My name is Logan, and I mean you no harm; I just want to talk.”

A strange raspy sound came from somewhere in the webs. Then a shadow detached itself from the roof and started lowering down on a rope of silk like a spider. It _looked_ like a pixie…but no pixie, day or night, had _solid black_ wings like what this one had—they were always variations of green or cyan, with black or white _markings_ indicating whether they were day or night.

Before Logan could get over the shock, the other pixie spoke. “Is it something in the water?”

“…What?”

“The drinking water. Of this house. Or maybe it’s in the food.”

Logan turned in place on the wall until he was looking at the other pixie’s face right-side-up. “I haven’t consumed any food or drink at this witch’s house, at least not yet, and what are we talking about?”

The pixie shook his head. “What you said just now was almost exactly what ‘this witch’ said to me when he first opened the jar he bought me in. His name, that he didn’t want to hurt me, a request for conversation.”

It took Logan a second to process the words. “He gave his name to a pixie?”

“That was why I was willing to listen to him, at least.”

“Does that have any bearing on why you are still here now?”

The pixie chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much. This kid showed such a lack of survival instinct that I felt it necessary to stick around and make sure he didn’t give his name to anything more dangerous. You can call me Anxiety by the way, I practically embody that.”

“You _do_ know that it’s just as difficult to use a pixie’s name against him as it is to use a human’s name against him, don’t you?”

“You’re a day pixie.”

Logan blinked. “Yes?”

“The wings made me think…well never mind. Night pixies are more suspicious.”

So Anxiety was a night pixie. Remus had been far less cautious, but perhaps that was because he was brother to a day pixie—certainly Roman was more suspicious than was traditional for his kind.

Logan shook off his musings. “ _Your_ wings are certainly fascinating.”

Anxiety made the raspy sound again—and now that Logan could see his face, he realized that it was the amused huff of one who didn’t laugh much. “Thanks. That witch and I share the credit for them looking like this.”

“I don’t understand. Surely a simple tracing job wouldn’t have caused this…”

“He told you why he bought me, huh? Well, technically he didn’t ‘trace’ them—according to him that would have taken too long to do right and had too high a risk of damaging my edges with whatever tool he used.” Anxiety waved his wings, rocking himself slightly on his silk. “Instead he used me as an ink stamp.”

Logan thought that one over and realized that Anxiety—and the witch; Thomas, had they said?—were right: there were very few positions a pixie could lay on a sheet of paper where their body wouldn’t be in the way of someone trying to trace their wings, and _the best_ tracing tools were hazardous to delicate edges. But coating the spread wings with ink and then resting the pixie on the paper would not only allow a risk-free capture of the entire wing (as long as the ink was nontoxic; surely one or the other would have checked that), but also provided impressions of any textured detailing on the wings—which would aid in the realism of that amulet Thomas had to make.

“But why do you still have ink on your wings?”

“Because, by the time I was in a place where I felt comfortable trying to wash up, the ink had already dried; I can’t get it off now.”

“Does it not interfere with your flying?” Anxiety’s wings did seem to move stiffly.

“They’re kinda heavy, yeah; I can’t fly as high or as fast as I used to. But the black makes me harder to see in the dark, which is when I fly anyway, so,” Anxiety shrugged, “fair trade.”

Logan considered. “Doesn’t it get hot out here in summer?”

“Probably.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t stay out here when it gets too hot.” Anxiety started pulling himself back up his rope with his feet.

Logan stammered for a moment, caught between the implication that Anxiety could get into Thomas’s house and the realization that the other pixie was leaving. Finally he got out, almost desperately, “Shouldn’t you tell the witch that you’re making use of his living space as well as your own?”

Anxiety paused and smirked down, tilting his antenna sardonically. “You think he’d care?”

“Actually, given how much care he is wanting to give my injured friend, I’m sure he would have no objections to your continued presence. It’s just the principle of the thing.”

“Huh. I’ll think about it.” Anxiety continued his climb until he disappeared into the shadows.

Logan stared up into the dark. Finally, shaking his head over the night pixie’s behavior, he turned around and dove through the hole in the webs.

The window was still open for him—a fact that was simultaneously gratifying and unsettling.

Logan fluttered through. “He is still there, Thomas. And…”

Thomas turned around and blinked in surprise at the starmapped day pixie. “How did you know my name?”

Joan slapped a hand over zir eyes—a “facepalm,” Logan believed that gesture was called. Talyn made an odd noise somewhere between a growl and a sigh. Roman choked out a guffaw around the leaf that someone had given him and he was busily chewing on. As for Patton…

“Well, we know it’s your name _now!_ ” he laughed.

Logan sighed and drifted to where the other two pixies were. “Your friends both used that name to address you before, remember? When they were inquiring as to your thoughts, and what amulet you had been assigned to make?”

Thomas thought for a second. Then his face colored up. “Oh.”

“And this is what happens when I don’t check in for a couple days.”

Logan didn’t precisely jump because he’d halfway been expecting the raspy voice, but it did take him an extra second to truly land because of the additional flurry his wings did in response to the mild startle. Everyone else jumped though, and all eyes went to the top of the bookshelf next to the window. Sure enough, there was Anxiety—waving his antenna to gather the smells of the room and looking very pleased with the reaction he got.

Logan pinched at the bridge of his horn. “I reiterate, there’s not a great deal that can be done with _just_ a name. Regardless of whose name it is, or who is trying to use it. People avoid using names around witches and magical beings more from paranoia than from any serious threat.”

“You just described _me,_ buddy.”

“True, you did introduce yourself to me as Anxiety…” Logan waved at the bookshelf. “Well, there is your former purchase; he has chosen to be your ‘guardian angel’ if you will.”

Anxiety wheezed a laugh.

Joan craned zir neck back to try and see Anxiety. “And channeled his inner termite to get in here, I’ll bet.”

Anxiety wheezed again and bobbed his head. “You could say that.”

“Wait, there’s a hole in my wall?” Thomas actually sounded slightly distressed.

“Yeah, and I made a door for it to keep drafts and pests out _and_ built my webs out around it to hide that it’s even there. Thanks for actually being concerned about something.”

“Speaking of names Logic, can we actually talk to you about that really quick?” Patton piped up. He glanced around the desk. “…Preferably somewhere with a little more privacy?”

Thomas retrieved his hat from the floor. “Wanna borrow this? I think you guys can just lift it when you’re done.”

Logan looked at the hat. Its fabric seemed to be woven from fierken-cotton, which, “That should be fine.” He stepped a few paces away from Roman and Patton and looked up expectantly.

Thomas took the hint and put the hat down on the desk—propped up slightly on the edge of a book, how considerate. Logan and Patton helped Roman to stand, and they all walked over to and ducked under the brim of the hat. It was a tight fit for three pixies, but that just meant they could speak as soft as they could and their discussion would be completely hidden from the witches.

“It’s actually really cozy in here,” Patton observed, looking around.

“Yes, fierkin plant matter is an excellent blend of qualities; difficult to find replicated anywhere else. What did you wish to talk about?” Logan asked.

Patton lowered his voice “I think we should tell Thomas Roman’s name.”

“What?”

“If Thomas knows it, we won’t have to hide it, which means we can help Roman heal himself with his creativity at any time instead of just when Thomas isn’t there. Thomas could even help. Encourage our Ro to dream of intact wings—and you _know_ that he can make things happen when he hopes and dreams hard enough, it’s why you use his name to distract him when he starts trying for something impractical.”

Roman shifted uncomfortably. “I’m…not completely against this idea. It’d be easier for you guys to pull me back, if…if I start to spiral.”

Logan studied Roman, slightly alarmed; he must still be feeling rather unwell despite the healing arts that had been worked on, if he wasn’t blustering that he “didn’t _need_ ” assistance and was in fact considering things getting worse. His glow was the weakest of the three pixies beneath the hat, and he was shaking to the point that he needed to cling to Patton.

“If you think it’s necessary,” he finally said. There _would_ still be the problem that Thomas could take advantage of knowing Roman’s name, but—well, thanks to that careless slip-up they all knew Thomas was truly his name. The pixies had the advantage. “But just to Thomas. The other two have to leave first.” All they had regarding the other two witches’ names was suspicions; without confirmation, they could do nothing with the names they had.

Roman considered. “That’s fair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about writing Roman's actual introduction to Thomas, but we all know approximately how that would go. He'll start explaining to Thomas about how he's really not doing so well and his fate looks grim yadda yadda…  
> T: "Aw, Princey, I..."  
> R: "Roman."  
> T: "Roman?"  
> R: "It's my proper name."  
> T: "Oh!"  
> And then he and the other fairies explain to Thomas about how Roman's powers work and how using his name can help with that. Really simple.


	6. Wishes Granted, Wishes Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mostly fluff, although some things are set in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew...I _had_ to get this chapter out before April ended, because I had to warn my readers. I discovered the existence of Mer May on Tumblr, and I have a storyverse that fits that prompt list perfectly, so this fic will go on hiatus until after I have written Mer May 2020. I won't neglect Fluttering entirely, but my primary focus will be on posting a chapter a day for the Mer fic; I'll try to have chapter 7 ready to post on the first of June.

Under Logic’s and Morality’s supervision, Thomas used a wooden roller to carefully press the creases out of Roman’s wings. It had been a few days since the creative pixie shared his name, and his wings showed dramatic improvement in some ways—and not nearly enough in others.

“Are they supposed to be green?” Thomas asked worriedly.

“Yes, Roman is a natural greenwing,” Logic answered, “I’d be concerned if they changed color.” He drummed his claws against his fangs. “What is concerning about _this_ situation is that they’re still not producing dust…Roman, can you move your wings?”

Thomas let go and pulled back, and Roman rolled from his side to his stomach. His wings moved slowly back and forth but, “They won’t go any faster—and I can’t lift them _up_ at all. They’re too heavy.”

“Thought _I_ was the heavy one.”

Anxiety’s voice from the top of the bookshelf made Thomas twitch away and startled Morality off the desk. Roman instinctively tried to echo the reaction, but his wings wouldn’t flutter and he dropped back down.

Logic glowered up at the night pixie. “Was that necessary?”

“I’m just saying, if I can learn how to fly with weighted wings, so can you.” Then with a lazy shrug he jumped off the bookshelf.

Watching the flight, Thomas could see what Anxiety had meant about his wings being heavy. He didn’t float; he swooped, much faster than either of the two flight-capable day pixies had been interested in trying. He didn’t land delicately either—there was a soft but definite thump as he settled on the desk like a frog, as far from Thomas and the day pixies as he could while still being on the desk and Thomas still heard it.

And… “You didn’t wash your wings off, after I…?”

Anxiety flapped his wings once, saucily, before standing up. “I can sleep the shadows and fly by night without fear of being seen, why would I want to get rid of this black?”

“Yes,” Logic mused, considering the mirror, “That is exactly what you told me. Nothing about how you didn’t try to get the ink off until _after_ it had already dried, no, it was a _deliberate_ aesthetic choice.”

“Shut up Logic, the black matches my soul.”

Roman made a weird noise that could have been a laugh. “Anxiety, you are an emo nightmare.”

Anxiety turned to stare silently at Roman for a long moment. “Thank you,” he finally said, sounding almost surprised.

Thomas thought he understood. The past few days had clearly demonstrated that Roman and Anxiety didn’t get along very well—mostly clashing over the antics that the creative pixie wanted to expend energy on when he should be healing. For Anxiety to actually _like_ something Roman said was…unusual.

Roman, meanwhile, was flustered by the fact that Anxiety had taken his words as a compliment. At least, if the way he was shuffling was anything to go by.

The slightly awkward silence was broken by a rattle at the front door.

“That would be the post.” Thomas got up and went to check. Briefly he wondered if it was okay to leave four pixies unattended in his workroom, but those thoughts quickly scattered when he saw the mail on the floor.

One letter.

From the theater.

* * *

Thomas walked back into the workroom turning a sealed envelope over and over in shaking hands.

“You okay there, kiddo?” Patton asked, fluttering up to see.

“Worldsmiths Theatrics sent me a letter.”

Logan blinked. “Why?”

“I’ll bet it has something to do with the audition he went to, like, the day before he found Princey,” Anxiety spoke first.

“Yup. You…you guys know about how some people make a living by acting, right?” It was a fair question, seeing as Thomas hadn’t yet asked any about pixie society.

“Sure!” Patton perched on Thomas’s wrist and started counting on his claws. “You put on a fancy outfit, get on a stage, pretend to be someone else for a big audience, and they give you money for it.”

“Yeah, pretty much. But before any performance like that is the dreaded audition process.” Thomas showed Patton the letter. “This is the result of my last one. Either I get the part, or I don’t.”

“Yes, that is how that works,” Logan agreed, “Are you…going to open the letter, or…”

“I’m scared. What if I didn’t get the part?”

“Aw, kiddo.” Patton changed position and hugged Thomas’s hand.

Roman rolled back onto his side and settled into a lounging position. “There will always be another performance; if you _somehow_ fail to get into this one, you can join the next one!”

Anxiety looked at Roman as though baffled that the day pixie would imply that _of course_ Thomas would have succeeded, when he’d never seen Thomas try to perform at all. He could be an absolutely hopeless actor for all Roman knew.

“True. Also, objectively speaking, there are only so many hours in a day to complete any itinerary,” Logan pointed out. “If you didn’t get the part, that only means you have more time to spend on other tasks that you wouldn’t otherwise have time to complete.”

Thomas sighed heavily. “Thanks, you guys. That…that helps.”

Anxiety turned away from Roman and stared at the still-sealed letter. “And if you _did_ get the part, and never show up for rehearsals because you didn’t read the letter and find out when they are, you’ll disappoint a lot of people.”

Thomas scrabbled to tear the flap off the envelope, unseating Patton in his haste.

“Anxiety…” Logan sighed, rubbing his horn.

“What? He’s opening the letter.”

Thomas dropped the envelope on his desk and adjusted the folded paper in his hands, taking several deep breaths. “Okay. I’m ready. I’m ready…”

Patton slithered back up until he was on top of Thomas’s wrist again and gently patted at the scratches he’d left in his wake when he slipped. “We believe in you Thomas.”

“Most of us,” Roman muttered.

Logan considered Roman suspiciously. “Was that to me or Anxiety? Because I would never make a judgement of Thomas’s chances at any task without objective knowledge of his skills regarding said task. Which I don’t have. I did not see this audition.”

“If _I_ didn’t think he could have made the part, I wouldn’t have said anything to provoke him into opening the letter,” Anxiety pointed out, rolling his eyes.

“Oh; well.” Roman shut his mouth and refused to clarify.

One more deep breath later Thomas flipped the paper open and started reading it. Then he froze.

“What? What does it say?” Roman bounced in place, waving his wings and looking frustrated that he couldn’t fly up to see for himself.

“…I got the part.”

Logan cocked his head. “That seems rather understated for…”

Roman waved at Logan. “It probably hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“…I got the…oh my gosh, Roman, you guys, I—I got the part!” Thomas started laughing and jumping, clutching an excitedly squealing Patton to his chest as he danced around the workroom. Then excitement turned to panic, and he stopped. “Omigosh, I got the part—now I have to memorize lines and show the director I know how to move around on stage and…”

Anxiety smirked. “Sink, sank, sunk. Breathe, Thomas.”

Patton kicked at Thomas’s chest. “Your heartbeat’s going overtime, kiddo.”

“What?” Thomas looked at the pixie in his grasp. “Oh—sorry Pops. Are you okay?” He lowered his hand to free Patton’s wings, uncurling his fingers slightly.

Patton adjusted his position but made no attempt to flee entirely. “I’m quite alright Thomas, I’m quite alright…” he looked over his shoulder; his wings were a bit crumpled. “…That’s fine.” He shivered slightly and his wings snapped open to shake themselves out like one would shake out a blanket or towel. They were almost entirely wrinkle-free when he stopped. “That’s what _we_ use the dust for—it keeps our wings from getting bent too far out of shape.”

Thomas ran a knuckle along the edge of Patton’s lower right wing, which had been the worst-crumpled before getting shaken out. “Huh; nice.”

Anxiety shrugged. “Yeah well…congrats or whatever.” Then he muttered something about overtime.

“Yes, congratulations on your successful audition, Thomas,” Logan folded his arms in the pixie salute, “I don’t anticipate you’ll have any trouble with the performance ahead.”

“I just wish I could go with you to see the performance,” Roman lamented.

“Really Princey?” Anxiety sneered. “Can’t even fly, and you want to go someplace where there are potentially tons of humans who could hurt you by accident or on purpose?”

“It has been months since my last performance! Longer since I attended one as a mere spectator!”

Thomas stepped quietly back from the desk as the two pixies argued, pursing his lips in thought.

Patton looked at Thomas’s expression. “Something bothering you, buddy?”

Thomas raised Patton up near his face. “I just thought of a surprise for the wounded prince over there. Want to help me make it?”

A quick look between Roman and Thomas evidently made up Patton’s mind. “Oh, of course!” He lowered his voice slightly. “What did you have in mind, a pixie-sized carriage?”

Thomas winked. “How’d you guess?” Then he sobered. “I still have the bottle I bought Anxiety in, so I _could_ repurpose that from a…a cage to a carriage, but…”

“If it’s going to be a shared travel box, I don’t think Anxiety or Logic would appreciate going back into an iron bottle no matter what you put inside to make it comfy…” realizing what he said, he clapped a hand over his mouth.

Thomas looked curiously at Patton. “Logic was…”

“I shouldn’t have said that it’s not my story to tell _ask Logic_ about it—the point is, you’d be better off making it from scratch using pixie-friendly materials.”

“…Okay. Like what?”

“I can write out a list for you.” Perhaps attracted by the sound of his temporary name, Logan had fluttered closer to listen.

Thomas looked at Logan. “Can you write it large enough for me to read without going cross-eyed?” he asked—half joking, but also curious.

“Certainly; just provide me with a blank sheet of paper and a source of ink.” He looked over his shoulder. “Also, Morality, could you perhaps stop those two before they injure each other? Their tempers are worked up too high for any logical methods of calming.”

“Coming!” Patton hopped off Thomas’s knuckles and floated down to the squabbling pixies.

Thomas opened a drawer in the side of the desk and pulled out some paper. “So,” he paused. “Did you hear what we were talking about?”

“Just the end of it. You wish to make something for us pixies, and you intend to craft it out of materials with a natural magical balance—that is generally what Morality means when he says ‘pixie-friendly’—and given the way he nearly shouted ‘ask Logic’ I would guess he accidentally hinted or implied something sensitive.”

Thomas spread the paper on the desk and pulled his ink bottle forward. “He…implied…that you had been captured once.”

Logan stopped flapping, resulting in a rather sudden landing at the edge of the paper. “Oh. That.”

“Yeah…you don’t have to tell me if…”

“My pursuit of knowledge made me careless, I have since learned much better.” He spun a ribbon of silk from his tail and used it to wipe his feet clean of any dirt and dust—it was good manners to not contaminate someone else’s ink, after all. “Morality, Roman, and Roman’s brother came to my rescue…”

“Roman has a brother?” Thomas murmured, uncapping the ink bottle.

“…And I am indebted to all three of them. If they had been just one minute later, I would have been dead or wingless.” He thought for a moment, waving his wings. “Or dead _and_ wingless.” He took off to hover just above the ink bottle.

“So losing your wings isn’t instant death? That’s reassuring…you know, if we can’t save Princey’s wings after all.”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Logan dipped his feet in the ink, one by one. “It is still considered a death _sentence_ of course, as without our wings we don’t have nearly as many fight-or-flight responses available to us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this world, iron only weakens fae; it doesn't injure them any more than a correspondingly-sized piece would hurt a human.
> 
> You might notice a lack of detail about the play. This is because I don't have any idea what play Thomas auditioned for, or what part he's now playing. Feel free to leave your comments and offer suggestions - you've got all of May to place your votes as to this performance, and next chapter I'll present the winners and show Thomas attending the rehearsals. Or don't. You know...up to you. (spoiler: the auditions are where we're going to meet at least Terrance, and possibly some other friends.)


	7. Measuring Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we have the beginnings of a gift and a little more worldbuilding happens.

Logic almost ended up writing three lists for Thomas rather than just one: consumables, hazardous materials, and the acceptable building materials. He’d gotten part of the way through the first list when Thomas realized that he recognized what was on it—witches had to keep track of exactly this when buying or making their magical tools. An “acceptable building material” to a pixie was a material that a witch could pick up off the ground raw and _just use_ as a multi-purpose magical item without adding anything else to it. The “hazardous” and “consumable” materials couldn’t be used right off the ground but _could_ be combined with each other to make magical items.

(Logic explained that pixies couldn’t mix two unacceptable materials thoroughly enough to pass for an acceptable one, and Thomas admitted that doing it by hand was more work than a pixie-sized box was worth; they’d be checking his shelves for things that were already balanced.)

Meanwhile Thomas found his measuring tape and was examining Logic to figure out how big this box needed to be. It was a bit entertaining to see him standing there straight and tall, arms held out like he was being measured for robes as Thomas moved the tape around his little body; he looked so serious about it too, and watched every move Thomas made.

It was a little disconcerting; Thomas had to keep reminding himself that Logic had excellent reasons to be wary of humans.

Roman wasn’t currently on the desk: a cupboard had been repurposed into a temporary house for the day pixies (Anxiety had made it clear that he valued his privacy, thank you very much) and he was in there with Morality doing…

“How are you guys keeping Princey distracted?” Logic had warned Thomas that Roman was particularly sensitive to people talking about him; using his proper name while discussing him would alert him that he was the topic of conversation, and he’d want to know what was going on.

“Storytelling I suspect; depending on how the Prince is feeling he’s either sharing one of his outlandish tales or listening to one of Morality’s.” Logic sighed. “Neither of them has shown capable of telling stories that have any basis in reality—they simply _must_ invent whole fantasies.”

Thomas chuckled as he took note of the numbers. “He’s the prince of creativity, right? I’d be surprised if he wasn’t a good storyteller. Is his brother like that?”

“Oh, the Duke? Yes, although his taste is more…” Logic considered. “…I think ‘grimy’ is an acceptable adjective in this case. He’s a night pixie like Anxiety.”

“Really? I thought Prince is a day pixie.”

“He is. Day and night pixies are not mutually exclusive, and it is quite possible for them to be siblings—even twins.”

“Huh. Are the Prince and the Duke…”

“…Twins? Yes.”

Thomas put the tape measure down. “Do they look alike?”

Logic crossed his arms and tapped his chin. “Given that there are aesthetic differences between day and night pixies, they are not _identical_ in appearance; that being said, they are still very similar.”

Thomas nodded acknowledgement and looked over the measurements. Logic was six inches tall, which was big for an amulet. “Okay, so…I think we should make this box big enough for you to _sit_ in, rather than _stand_ in. How small can you comfortably make yourself?”

Logic tilted his head, looking surprised for a moment. “Ah…yes, that would be a more efficient use of space. Especially seeing as this is exclusively for travel.” He knelt on the desk—lifted slightly to make room for his tail—and lowered his wings down. “I recommend you add a bench; it would be much easier to hold this position if properly sitting on something.”

“Oh, well then let’s do it that way.” Thomas emptied the cup he was using as a pencil holder and set it up in front of him, resting a pencil across the top. “Would that work?”

Blinking at the cup, Logic sprang to its rim like a grasshopper before hopping carefully onto the pencil. “It will suffice for our current purposes,” he decided, taking the designated position. “And don’t worry about my wings: they bend, and not even Princey’s wings are so brittle they can’t handle being curved into a small space. To a degree.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Thomas started measuring again. “You know, the more I talk with you guys the worse I feel about how you get treated by…well, humans in general, but witches in particular.”

Logic’s wings shifted in a shrug. “Objectively I don’t blame them; we resemble insects more than humans, so it is difficult for our respective peoples to relate to each other upon first impression. Humans think we are animals; we think humans are…well.”

Thomas grimaced but didn’t argue. These pixies looked two-thirds insectoid; hard to relate to something with a horn for a nose and jaws that looked capable of chewing through a wall (Thomas did wonder if Anxiety had used his teeth for that). He also had no doubt at all, Logic had nearly said pixies thought of humans as monsters—and what _would_ you call a race of beings whose interactions with your kind primarily revolved around imprisoning and exploiting you.

“It’s not right,” he mumbled instead—and wondered how good a pixie’s hearing was.

Logic leaned forward and looked at Thomas’s paper with its measurements. “Looks accurate to me. At least reasonably so…I’m only moderately familiar with your units of measurement…”

Pretty good, apparently. “Not the measurements. Just because how my people treat your people is ‘objectively’ understandable, doesn’t mean it’s okay.” Thomas glanced at the clock; they’d been at this a while. He would take a break and work on turning those measurements into a proper design later. “Roman said a while ago that you might have some ideas on how to improve the relationship between witches and pixies.”

Logic fluttered from his place, correctly inferring that no more measurements were happening right now. “I suppose I might give the matter some thought. Your treatment of us has been…satisfactory.”

“You just like the jam,” Anxiety spoke from the bookshelf, sounding amused.

The accusation startled a laugh out of Thomas. Logic _did_ like the jam that was currently the pixies’ food source; he’d shown a particular fondness for Crofter’s. To be fair Thomas liked that brand as well, so it was most of what he’d bought—and with the pixies being so small, they didn’t put much of a dent in his budget.

Anxiety still went out sometimes…to hunt? Thomas hadn’t asked. Logic did too—back when trust was still a work in progress, he made a point to only leave for short periods and made Morality _promise_ to stay with Roman while he was gone, but now he was more…lenient.

“You’re not having a party without me, are you?” Roman asked as Morality helped him back to the desk.

“No, we were just…” as Thomas looked at Roman, he remembered the conversation about the Duke. “…Logic was telling me about your brother. Did he live with you?”

Roman sighed. Loudly. “Re…”

“You’re just going to tell his name without his permission, kiddo?” Morality cut him off, somehow sounding gentle and chiding at the same time.

Roman muttered something before speaking up again. “The _Duke_ is a night pixie—the nerd told you that?” At Thomas’s nod he went on, “Night pixies prefer to hide away from the sun; our old house was too bright for him. We were neighbors though.”

Thomas smiled at the thought of the brothers being neighbors. Then a different thought struck him. “Does he know you all made it out of that storm all right?”

Roman jolted, a strange chirp-like noise coming from him, while Morality stared at Logic.

“I encountered the Duke on a previous excursion and reassured him of our safety,” Logic reassured them. Then he hesitated. “In rather…vague terms. I did not tell him of our exact location or that you were injured, Roman, out of concern that he might seek you out.”

“And do what?” Thomas asked.

Morality sighed, his body language conveying exasperated fondness. “With the Duke, there’s no telling. I love that kid, but he’s aggressive and unpredictable.”

“Also, I suspect he might be…concerned…that we’re living with a witch,” Logan added. “Especially given the last time one of us was ‘living’ with one.”

“What, would he try to attack me?” Thomas asked with a nervous laugh.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Morality chirped, fluttering up to pat Thomas’s face. “We pixies can’t do much at all to a human without their name, we’re too small! Even if the Duke does show up and throw a tantrum before we can reassure him, you’d be totally fine!”

* * *

On the desk, the other three pixies made uneasy noises.

“Does he really not know?” Virgil muttered to Logic and Roman.

“He’s a blue-winged day pixie, they tend to be arrogant about their more straightforward abilities,” Roman replied in an undertone—and then started scrambling. “Uh, no offense, Logic!”

“None taken, I am willing to acknowledge that about myself,” Logic replied. “Also, he and I lived at a pond before my capture; avoiding larger threats was as simple as diving underwater.” He sighed. “And Morality was opening my cage while the Duke was dealing with the witch who put me in it, and Roman led us out _away_ from that fight, so he never saw what happened—he probably thinks that witch is fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #Ominous Music


	8. Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, it's not literally a Cinderella chapter; but there _are_ a couple of references to Disney in general and Cinderella in particular, so why not.

Roman could hardly stand still. Thomas had a _surprise_ for him! And he’d gotten the others to help him with it—how had they managed to keep it a secret?

It didn’t matter. Now he was standing on the desk with Patton standing behind him and covering his eyes while Thomas got something set up in front of him.

“Okay, you can look now!” Thomas sounded just as excited as Roman felt—and just a little bit apprehensive.

Patton whipped his hands away and Roman gasped. “ _Pumpkin carriage!_ ”

Okay, it wasn’t literally a pumpkin and it wasn’t exactly a carriage. But it was some sort of woody shell or husk, and it had been hollowed out and given a door, window, and bench. A long cord threaded through a ring that was affixed to the top of the husk. And they’d decorated it, painting it red and white with gold trimmings and someone had made pretty curtains and cushions for the inside and it looked so regal—

“Do you like it?” Thomas asked shyly. “We made it so that I could bring you along to my performances and you wouldn’t be bothered.”

“ _Like_ it? Thomas, I,” Roman stopped talking and ran over to examine the device up close. “I _love_ it, it’s beautiful!”

“All of the locking mechanisms are on the inside,” Logan informed him, sounding very satisfied; he must have built the locks himself. “And the shell is from a hotwood nut, so if something were to hold the carriage closed—or in the _very_ unlikely event that the locks fail to release for you—you would be able to break out with only moderate difficulty.”

He definitely built the locks himself.

“I want to try it out! Can we try it out?” Roman looked up at Thomas eagerly.

“You hardly need Thomas’s permission to sit inside,” Logan pointed out, “Seeing as it was built for you originally and…”

“I want to _go_ somewhere! You and Morality can fly wherever you please, and even Count Woe-laf ducks out on occasion!”

“Quack,” Patton teased.

“I just want an _adventure!_ Even if it’s just a walk around town!”

Thomas shrugged. “Sure.”

Logan blinked up. “Thomas, there’s no reason to modify your schedule around his demands…”

“No modifying needed. A friend of mine invited me over this evening to watch movies and hang out; Roman can come along for the change of scenery. Do you like Disney?”

Roman informed Thomas with calm dignity that he was a longtime Disney fan. (Yeah no, his initial screech could probably be heard from the forest and the excited princey noises and dancing that followed were hardly dignified.)

“What the heck was that?”

Even the appearance of Anxiety did nothing to dampen Roman’s enthusiasm. “Disney!”

“Oh hello,” Patton greeted Anxiety warmly. “Roman is just excited that the carriage is done and he gets to go watch Disney.”

Thomas sighed dramatically. “If I’d realized you were such a big Disney fan I’d have brought you to my living room for a marathon ages ago—I _have_ Disney movies.”

“Maybe we can have one when you get back!” Patton offered cheerfully.

“That would depend entirely on _when_ he gets back,” Logan pointed out. “Gatherings of this sort can run very late and he will need sleep.”

Anxiety shrugged. “Well, whenever we get around to having a Disney marathon here I’m down for it.”

Roman gasped dramatically. “Is the Dark and Stormy night pixie a fan of our bright, wholesome Disney?”

That got a cackle. “Clearly we’re not watching the same movies.”

* * *

It hadn’t taken long for the two pixies to get into an argument about the messages in Disney movies (Roman was disagreeing with Anxiety more strongly than Anxiety was disagreeing with Roman, it seemed like), and Thomas had to go get changed before it was done. The route from Thomas’s house to Valerie’s involved cutting through a part of town where witches generally weren’t accepted, so it would be better if he didn’t look the part when he went over. The “amulet” would already be pushing it.

As soon as he was dressed to go (slacks and a nice jacket; fancy enough that Roman’s carriage wouldn’t look too out of place on it, but not excessively fancy), he went back into the room. “Ready to go, Roman?”

Instantly Roman abandoned the argument and jumped into the carriage. “Ready!”

Anxiety looked Thomas up and down. “That’s what you’re wearing?”

“It’s not too witchy is it? My friend doesn’t mind them, but she lives on the other side of a witch-free zone.”

“You look great!” Morality assured quickly.

All the other pixies considered the outfit; even Roman stuck his head back out of the carriage to look.

“Indeed, that coat is rather dashing and not particularly witch-like,” Roman observed.

Anxiety nodded slowly. “…Yeah, sure. It’s not a hundred percent _not_ witchy, somebody could still think you look like a witch, but…”

“But most people think of the traditional hat and robes when they envision a witch,” Logic pointed out. “While not impossible, the chances that you will encounter a sufficiently observant aggressor is…”

“…Infinitesimal?” Morality offered, smiling slyly.

Logic snarled. “You’re still on about that Patton?”

Thomas blinked. “What?”

Logic pointed at the pastel blue pixie. “You make _one_ mistake, and this is what happens! I misused that word _one_ time-!”

Anxiety facepalmed—as best he could with a horn, at least. _He’d_ caught what Thomas was reacting to.

“No—well, yes, but—why’d you call Morality ‘Patton’?”

Logic slapped a hand over his mouth, looking discomfited. No, straight-up horrified.

For a moment all the pixies stood there, exchanging glances with each other and with Thomas in a silence that could _only_ be termed “awkward.”

Morality (Patton?) broke the silence, giving Logic a forgiving smile. “Have you not said yourself many times that name magic is too complicated to just use—and implied that we would catch someone trying long before they’d perfected the spell or ritual to a point that it would succeed? Haven’t we observed in the past few weeks that _this_ witch has our best interests at heart?” He darted over to the carriage’s cord and flew it up towards Thomas—he didn’t have the strength to lift the carriage, Roman and all, but he was making it very easy for Thomas to pick it up himself. “I believe in you Thomas.”

Thomas smiled shyly and took the cord. “Thanks…so, your name…”

“Is Patton, yes.”

“Well, it’s nice to properly meet you!” He offered a finger, which Patton gladly hugged. Then he hung the carriage around his neck—trying to be gentle and not shake it around too much, though Roman made a little bit of a squeak anyway.

Patton made a quick drop to the carriage’s level. “Hey Roman, when you get back home let us know if this acorn was the right size; if it’s too roomy or too cramped we can modify it with a spell or two.”

“Sure thing Padre—it’s okay right now though!” Roman called back.

Thomas looked down. “Is it locked?”

A shuffle. “Yes!”

“Alright, we’re going.” Thomas turned towards the door—then hesitated. “Logic, I’m not going to do anything to any of you that you don’t want me to do. Knowing your names doesn’t change that; just makes us even, since you all know _my_ name. You understand all that, right?”

Logic sighed. “Objectively, yes. It is just…difficult, after my previous experience with witches.”

Thomas nodded; that was about what he’d expected. He started to leave again and then pulled up short. “Oh, is there anything you want me to get out for you before Roman and I go?”

Patton waved the concern off. “Nah, we’ll be good. Have fun!”

“Take care,” Logic added.

“And be back before midnight—there’s been weird things roaming the streets,” Anxiety put in.

Thomas blinked at Anxiety. “What weird things?”

Anxiety walked to, and dropped off, the back edge of the desk—effectively leaving the conversation.

Thomas eyed the other two. “You know what he’s talking about?”

“I’m usually asleep long before midnight,” Patton answered, tilting his head curiously. “Day pixie, you know?”

“I am occasionally up that late…” Logic said contemplatively, “…But my night vision is not so good that I would consider leaving shelter at that hour.” He shook his head. “You go enjoy your socialization; I will inquire after more details.”

Nodding, Thomas stepped out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should _not_ be playing Fazbear Frights lore-breakdown videos while I'm trying to write; I practically had Virgil end that whole conversation saying that the Stitchwraith was in town (if you've read the books yourself or watched The Game Theorists' FNAF videos (the ones released in January 2020) you'll know what I'm talking about).
> 
> tbh I don't know yet what Virgil's _actually_ talking about; I'll figure it out and get a few more chapters out of it. _He_ thinks it's not friendly, obviously.


	9. Showtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a movie marathon to a show Thomas would have rather avoided.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: violence and body horror at the end.
> 
> (this is the first chapter I've written for any Ao3 fanfiction that really definitely has triggers; it's probably going to just be the one chapter, but let me know if I should add it to the tags anyway)

“Thomas, it’s good to see you again!” Valerie caught Thomas in a hug. “You didn’t have too much trouble getting here, did you?”

“Not too much…”

A surprised squeak from the vicinity of Thomas’s chest caught both their attention, and Valerie stepped back to give a surprised look at his new amulet.

“Oh,” Thomas lifted the little carriage, making sure its door was pointed at Valerie. “I have a new roommate—a few of them actually. This is, uh, Prince.”

Roman opened the door and bowed dramatically—or as dramatically as he could from a seated position. “It is a pleasure to meet you, milady!”

Valerie laughed. “Aww, such a charming little pixie prince!” She offered her finger, giggling after he kissed it. “And ‘Milady’ will do, I suppose.” She glanced up at Thomas again. “Not complaining, but why is he here?”

Thomas shrugged with a grin. “He was…eager for an adventure; and he likes Disney.”

Roman wiggled happily.

“Huh, pixies watch movies? I wouldn’t think movie companies would cater to nonhumans.” She shrugged apologetically at Roman. “Do pixies actually have televisions, or have you snuck into a theater or something?”

Roman opened his mouth…and nothing came out. No words, at least—his jaws clicked a time or two, as though he was trying to get words out but was failing.

Thomas carefully shifted the carriage in his hands so that he could see Roman. “You okay there, Princey?”

“Oh my goodness…Thomas, please don’t tell Logic and Morality…I mean they probably already suspect, but there’s no need to _confirm_ their suspicions…”

“Did you go somewhere you weren’t supposed to in order to watch movies?” Thomas asked with a knowing smirk.

“Well…”

Valerie laughed. “So, what do you want to watch? Is anything okay, or would you rather it be something where the characters are your size? Oh, and I have tons of snacks but there’s also more substantial stuff in the fridge if you haven’t had dinner yet.”

“Oh thanks!” Thomas _had_ already had dinner, back before he got changed; Valerie hadn’t said over the phone if there would be actual meal-type food, and he hadn’t wanted to guess wrong.

“ _All_ characters are my size when they appear on a small screen.” Roman tapped his teeth. “However, I must confess a certain fondness for Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin.”

Thomas blinked. “Odd choices there.”

“They have the most inspiring climaxes for one of my size, of course!”

After a moment’s thought Thomas realized what Roman meant. Aladdin’s fight with Jafar peaked with the sorcerer becoming a snake—a _giant_ snake—and when Prince Philip finally engaged Maleficent in direct combat, she turned into a massive dragon. They had to fight, and win, against foes significantly larger than themselves. “How about Little Mermaid? Same type of final battle.”

“Weeellll…” Roman waggled his hand. “That one’s rather a more…distant third.”

“Why is that a…” Thomas mumbled. Then he shifted gears. “Well, let’s start with Aladdin.”

* * *

They ended up watching Roman’s entire top three (Thomas realized why The Little Mermaid was a “distant third” about the time Ursula turned herself human: Roman didn’t like the prince getting hypnotized), taking breaks in between movies to make more popcorn and discuss how theater work improved a witch’s ability to call and control familiars. Roman spent the entire evening sitting on Thomas’s shoulder, bouncing excitedly as he munched on popcorn kernels and candy-coated chocolate pieces (and singing his favorite songs from each of the movies they watched). Valerie had glanced curiously at Roman’s dull, wrinkled wings, but hadn’t asked.

“Want to watch Cinderella next?” Valerie asked, waving the box.

Cinderella. The girl who had to be home from the ball by midnight. Anxiety had said… “How long is it again?”

Valerie turned the box around and looked at the back. “Uh…seventy-five minutes.”

“We’d better not, it’s already almost eleven and one of our other pixie roommates made an excellent case for being home by midnight.” Under his friend’s questioning look Thomas explained, “Something’s roaming the streets at night, apparently. I wasn’t able to ask for details, that was _right as_ I was leaving to come here, but…he was concerned.” He frowned slightly. “Have _you_ heard of anything like that around here?”

Valerie scrunched up her face in thought and slowly shook her head. “Even the densest magical creature has the sense to not come around here for long periods; Phoenix Rock has a very enthusiastic neighborhood watch in regard to…you know…magic.”

Roman shivered and closed himself inside his carriage.

“So…either it’s not here yet, or it’s been here and left before anyone saw it, because I haven’t heard anything.”

“Gotcha.” Thomas lifted the carriage. “Ready to go, Your Highness?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” He popped the door open again to quickly wave at Valerie, “Until we meet again, Milady!” and then ducked back in.

“You sure you don’t want a ride? The buses aren’t running this late.”

Thomas shrugged. “It’s not that far. We’ll be fine.”

“If you’re sure…call me when you get home, okay?”

“Sure thing!”

After a big hug and promises of another movie night (at _Thomas’s_ house next time), Thomas stepped out into the night.

* * *

The walk from the bus stop to Valerie’s house had been done in complete silence; conversing with a tiny disembodied voice in Phoenix Rock was a good way to get assaulted. They had a much longer walk this time, and at a time when the neighborhood watch would most likely have someone watching out for anything suspicious, so it was even more important that Roman be quiet and Thomas not talk to him. At least, not directly to him; since this _was_ a longer walk and Thomas didn’t want Roman to be bored, he would occasionally make remarks to himself about the roads that the pixie couldn’t come out to see.

“Lot of stars out tonight.”

“This place looks like a fortress in the dark.”

“No trees; at this hour I have mixed feelings about that.”

As the neighborhood limit drew near, Thomas’s furtive glances at his surroundings became more frequent. It was almost impossible to believe that he would get all the way out of an unfriendly neighborhood without having to talk his way out of a potentially hostile situation.

_Thomas?_

It was all Thomas could do not to visibly startle as he heard—and _felt_ —Roman’s voice inside his head. So that was what pixies could do with someone’s name…

_I don’t want to jinx it, but where is everybody?_

On the other side of the street, a commotion made Thomas tense up. Stealing a glance to the side, he saw that a small mob was attacking a figure in robes.

_What’s going on? I can’t see!_

Thomas turned slightly, poking the carriage to aim the window fully at the crowd.

_Oh. Are you going to try and save that witch?_

“Got a plan that doesn’t involve one guy and a flightless pixie wading into a fight against…at least ten guys with various bludgeons?” Thomas murmured, trying to count heads. “Those weapons are probably magic-retardant, too.”

_…Oh._

Still, doing nothing at all for a fellow witch in need…kind of grated.

Thomas took a few more steps, turned off his flashlight, and cast an illusion spell over himself. Now he looked a little taller, his hair blond and swept back, just a shadow of a beard—and a much more casual jeans and jacket, with no amulet in sight.

Thus disguised, he turned his flashlight back on and went back towards the crowd.

_What’s your plan?_

“I just want to see what’s happening,” Thomas muttered. He couldn’t _save_ this witch without using magic, which would make future visits to Valerie’s house a lot more dangerous—but if he could see the witch well enough to identify them later, he could search them out after and provide help.

But oh, it was hard to ignore the sheer _hate_ in the faces and voices of these people…he definitely didn’t want to risk attracting their attention by shoving through them. Fortunately, the mob wasn’t huge; just ten or twelve people. He could get close enough to see the witch without trying to force.

The other witch was…the embodiment of every cruel stereotype to be honest. Filthy, tattered robes, long and stringy hair, a crooked nose—if they’d had a hat it was long gone thanks to the attack of the mob. What kind of crazy witch walked into Phoenix Rock looking exactly like how they expected a witch to look?

Then he caught a brief glimpse of the witch’s eyes as they took another blow with hardly a flinch, and Thomas felt a wave of guilt at the thought, sympathy for the witch, and disgust at the mob. The poor guy (gal? Nonbinary? Witch robes were awfully androgynous) was mentally disabled; maybe it was a stroke or a brain disease, or even some spell going horribly awry, but they did not have command of their mental facilities. They probably hadn’t realized they were dressed wrong to visit Phoenix Rock, and even now didn’t understand why these people were hurting them. Thomas prayed for some sort of miracle to end this senseless abuse.

One of the larger men in the crowd gave the witch a hard shove, sending them spilling to the ground where their head hit the curb with a sickening crack. Thomas barely had time to wince before one of the women jumped away with a horrific scream, pointing at the witch’s cracked skull—and suddenly the entire mob was backing away and shouting.

Thomas’s first step back was just to keep from drawing attention to himself; then he saw why the woman screamed and his retreat became in earnest.

When he wished for a miracle, he hadn’t expected to learn that black-and-lime bugs were nesting in the witch’s brain.


	10. Wake-up Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thomas gets home okay and the fairies make themselves breakfast. Also Logan gets into a...sticky situation. ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> formerly known as "Shock and Toast" - coming back around to edit old chapters is a great opportunity to change stupid names.

Virgil had gotten himself run of Thomas’s entire house by the end of the second night living here. Most of the time, he only went in when Thomas was out, making sure there were no intruders and waiting for the witch’s return—at which point he would go back to his web-nest under the eaves. Now that he’d started coming inside when Thomas was home, he was beginning to consider greeting Thomas at his return.

When Thomas came stumbling in at eleven thirty, trembling and looking stunned, Virgil knew that there was no longer a question of if he should speak.

“Thomas?” He flapped heavily over, startling the witch.

“Anxiety? H-how did you get out of the workroom?”

Virgil hummed in concern; Thomas oughta be able to figure that one out. “Thomas, listen,” he landed on Thomas’s shoulder and crawled up to massage his neck, “you need to relax, okay? Breathe in…and out…good, like that…”

The first breath was very shaky. “The b-bugs…they were…”

“Shh, shh…it can wait until morning. Just breathe.”

Slowly, gradually, the tension went out of Thomas’s neck and shoulders. He wandered into the living room, still trembling, and dropped onto the couch.

Virgil didn’t fancy his chances of getting Thomas to his own bed, and one night on the couch wouldn’t kill him. Though… “Make sure you take the pixie carriage off before you try to sleep there.” He swung around onto Thomas’s collar and plucked at the cord.

Thomas took the carriage off and half-dropped it onto the coffee table. Then he tipped over to lay down on the couch, taking a minute to kick his shoes off before closing his eyes.

Virgil grabbed the throw blanket in his teeth and crawled along the back of the couch to pull it, awkwardly covering Thomas. It would be easier with help, but Patton and Logan were probably asleep already and Roman couldn’t fly.

Speaking of Roman…

“Is he Gucci?” Roman asked, stepping carefully out of the carriage.

Virgil hopped onto Thomas’s shoulder. “I think so; what happened?”

“You’re asking me? I could hardly see anything from inside this little box. He wasn’t attacked, I can tell you that much.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“ _Someone_ was attacked; Thomas investigated, _very_ discreetly, to see who it was, and then everything fell off the train and landed in Crazy-town.”

“Something to do with bugs, apparently.” Virgil looked at Thomas. “I guess we ask Patton to…reassure him? Or do all creepy-crawlies…but that wouldn’t make sense because _we_ practically are part-bug, it’d be like a human being scared of all primates…”

“Wha-oh, Patton scared of spiders? Yeah, that’s—it’s just spiders. He’s fine with most other bugs—or, if he _is_ scared of them, it’s more ‘rational’.”

In other words, there was actually a reason to be afraid of them; like they were particularly aggressive, had strong chompers, or were venomous. “Well, we can get him in here in the morning. Or get Thomas to him.” Virgil crept back to Thomas’s neck and settled there.

“I have to sleep on the coffee table all night?” Roman sounded indignant.

“Or you could walk back to the workshop. There’s no rats or anything, it’s just a hike in the dark.” Virgil curled up and shut his eyes, not bothering to look and see what Roman decided to do for the remainder of the night.

* * *

Thomas woke up to merry chirping and strange kitchen noises. He shifted carefully, wondering why he was on the couch.

The little weight on his neck moved. “You awake?”

Thomas startled. “Wh-Anxiety?”

“’Sup.” Little claws scraped along Thomas’s chin as Anxiety stood and leaned over to look him in the eye. “Feeling any better after last night?”

_Last…_

The events came flooding back. Phoenix Rock. The mob. The witch with—

Thomas jolted upright, only remembering Anxiety when the pixie tumbled down his shoulder. “O-oh, uh, sorry…”

Anxiety climbed back up. “I’m guessing you just now remembered?”

“Y-yeah…” He looked at the empty carriage on the table. “Where’s Roman?”

“Dunno. Best guess, kitchen—it’s where the other two are.”

Thomas stood up slowly. “How…” Wait. If pixie jaws were tough enough to gnaw little holes in outside walls, they wouldn’t have any trouble chewing through inside walls. “How much of my house did you give yourself access to?” he asked instead.

Anxiety chuckled. “I dunno, all of it? I knew you had the wits to figure it out.”

Thomas walked into the kitchen to find all the pixies on the counter—along with a half-loaf of bread, the honeypot, and a butter knife smeared with honey. Roman and Patton were both spattered in crumbs and honey, while Logic…

_Where’s Logic?_

Thomas looked around the counter and found a jam jar behind the honeypot; half filled with jam, and half filled with a pixie who had dove in headfirst. He had the bowl of a spoon in his hands and was using it to shovel jam towards his face, and his feet clung to the handle of the spoon; his little tail wiggled happily.

“Gracious, nerd,” Anxiety laughed, “is that how you got caught the first time?”

Logic made a negative-sounding noise—though it was muffled by the jar and the spoon—and he pulled his legs down like he was trying to hide in the jar (which was too small for a whole pixie to fit into half of; might even be too small if it was totally empty). His wings quivered but couldn’t flap because they were caught between his body and the rim of the jar.

Swallowing a chuckle, Thomas picked up the jar and turned it to see the label. “Crofter’s Loganberry; a favorite of yours, Teach?”

Logic went very still for a moment. Then, evidently deciding that he would like to salvage some dignity, he struggled backwards out of the jar and perched on the rim. “Well…yes, I suppose I can admit to…enjoying loganberry more than most other flavors.” He made a half-hearted attempt to wipe the jam off his face. “Partly because it…well, it is my namesake.”

Thomas set the jar down—and then gasped as he fully registered what the pixie had said. “Oh my gosh your name is Loganberry!”

“What? No, no…just Logan.”

“Oh; okay that makes more sense. Wow, thank you for sharing that with me…Logan.”

Logan shrugged, though he looked vaguely pleased. Also still very embarrassed at having been caught gorging by the owner of the house. “Might I, um…have a shower?”

“You can use the shower…?”

Anxiety snorted and tapped the corner of Thomas’s eye, pointing at the sink when he twitched.

“Oh right…sure.” Thomas reached over and turned the faucet on and watched Logan flutter over.

Patton crawled into the bread bag and came back out dragging a slice of bread. “Want some toast, Thomas?”

“Sure…” Thomas eyed the bag. “…I thought I had more bread than that. Did the three of you really eat half a loaf before I got up?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Roman scoffed, “We only had one slice apiece. It just took a couple of tries to figure out how to work the toaster.”

Logan made some strange noises from down in the sink.

Thomas looked in. “You okay in there?”

“Fi-fine,” he sputtered.

Patton struggled the slice over his head—looking absurdly like a man carrying a family-sized table—and teetered over to the toaster. “Burned four slices…managed to get three perfectly toasted.” With a hop he managed to throw the bread into the toaster and scampered to the lever, pushing it down with a flutter of wings.

“While you’re waiting for that, perhaps you should call Milady?” Roman asked. “She did insist that you inform her of your safe return…”

“Agh!” He _had_ promised that—and he was in too much shock last night to even think of a text. Valerie was probably frantic. He scrabbled for his phone—thankful to discover that it was still in his pocket.

Anxiety abandoned his moving perch and swooped heavily to the counter—and looked behind the breadbag. “Huh, looks like we’ve got a spare piece of toast back here. One of the three?”

“That’s Logan’s, if you want it you’ll have to ask him for it,” Roman informed him haughtily.

“Hey Logan, you forgot your toast?” Anxiety called, laughter in his voice.

“Yes, and I should probably eat at least some of it if I don’t want thrum-back,” Logan called back up with a sigh. “Perhaps leave the crust…or if _you_ want the crust, leave a square of comparable size from the middle.”

Finally Thomas had his phone out and hit Valerie’s number. Rang once, twi—it connected. “Hey, it’s Thomas…”

Valerie threw a fit. Thomas only caught maybe one word in three, but he understood enough to know that she’d been worried all night _and_ had heard about the riot so she’d been even _more_ worried and she should have insisted that he stay the night…

“There was a riot?” Patton asked.

“Yeah, but they weren’t after me; I’m fine. They’d found some other poor guy who…” Thomas hesitated. “I…don’t think you want that information, Milady.”

**“Is this about the fact that the ‘witch’ they caught had some weird bug infestation in their brain? Because yeah, I heard about that already.”**

“Oh!” Patton gasped, his wings jerking.

Thomas looked up questioningly. “Pa…” wait, was he not supposed to share their names with others? “…dre?”

When Patton spoke again, his voice was very small; Thomas had to strain to hear it.

“I forgot that spell even existed.”


	11. Spells...and Reflections?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They discuss fey spells and a suggestion is offered for the healing of Roman.

“It is simply called Swarm Infest; it’s an innate ability in pixies.”

Thomas was buttering his toast, Anxiety was crawling around the other piece of toast and chewing the crust off it, Patton was taking a turn under the faucet while Roman cleaned himself up with a washcloth, and Logan was leaning against the still-warm toaster and explaining to the humans about the spell that had been evidently cast on the witch in Phoenix Rock.

 **“It puts bugs in people’s brains?”** Valerie asked.

“Specifically, it conjures a swarm of burrowing insects reminiscent of ants or termites and releases them on a target. Although all pixies _can_ use the spell, most choose not to because once the insects have bored inside a target nobody can control them—not even their creator.”

“I’ve used it occasionally—on inanimate objects,” Roman spoke up. “It’s a good counter to creative block; cast the spell and study their tunnels afterward.”

“I don’t like it,” Patton piped up, coming out from under the sink shower. “If I _have_ to hurt someone, I’d rather hit them once and be done with it; none of that ‘several hours of suffering’ afterward.”

“What-the spell has a…” Thomas reached over to turn the faucet off. “…finite runtime?”

“It…yes, it lasts four to seven minutes or until the pixie who cast it gets more than a hundred meters from the target,” Logan acknowledged, glowering at Patton’s “several hours” exaggeration. “At that point, the bugs revert back into magical energy and…what happens to that energy depends on what the target is.”

“When it’s a plant, it explodes!” Roman offered. “Dukey enjoys doing that.”

“It depends on the plant…” Logan muttered.

Thomas considered. “You suppose the witch I saw in Phoenix Rock was the same one who captured you, Logic? That _that_ was what the Duke did to them?”

“Impossible,” Logan said immediately. “My capture and subsequent release was over six months ago.” He hesitated. “I couldn’t say for sure that he did not use that spell, however: I didn’t witness his fight.”

“ _I_ witnessed the start of it,” Roman spoke up, shuddering. “I don’t know what spell he used though, just where he was when he used it; I couldn’t imagine doing what he did.”

**“Who’s Dukey?”**

Thomas looked at the phone. “Princey’s brother—who I haven’t met yet.” He took a bite of his toast.

**“Do he and Princey have the same wings?”**

Thomas gave the pixies a questioning look as he chewed, and they all stared at him blankly.

“I literally can’t get that kind of look at my own wings,” Roman pointed out, craning his neck to look back and forth over each shoulder and demonstrate his field of vision regarding his own body. “If our wings match—or did match, before the storm ruined mine, someone else would have to tell me so.”

Patton shrugged widely. “I don’t pay attention to that kind of thing!”

Anxiety stood up and carried a square of toast over to Logan, brushing crumbs off his face. “I don’t even know this Duke, and I never saw Princey’s wings when they were normal.”

Logan took the toast thoughtfully. “An interesting query, I suppose; why do you ask, Milady?”

**“One of my movies has a couple of fairy sisters with identical wings; when one of them got a torn wing they were able to magically repair it by matching up the patterns.”**

Silence reined in the kitchen.

**“I mean I know the movie was fiction, but it’s still a thought.”**

“It’s an interesting one,” Logan mused, considering the toast. “Our Prince is a day pixie and the Duke is a night pixie, but both have creativity as their primary talent; they are mirror twins, opposing sides of the same coin if you would. But are they identical in such a way that one could heal the other?”

Thomas swallowed. “Would it be safe to ask him? You guys said before he was aggressive…”

“Siblings,” Anxiety began. Then he stopped and looked at the others uncertainly. “…Wouldn’t…deliberately?”

“Injure our Prince while he’s already injured?” Patton frowned, looking absurdly like a stern father. “He’d better not. I know that the two of them seem to consider fighting each other to be a love language, but surely they have _some_ lines that neither will cross.”

Roman chuckled. “Maybe we should send Morality to ask him if he can come over—he can Dad-Stare my brother into behaving himself.”

“Maybe I _should_ go get him. Logic, is he still living in the same hole where he was before the storm brought our house down?”

Logan’s mouth was full of toast at that exact instant; his only audible reply was a hum as he paced a single perfect clockwise circle.

Patton nodded briskly and took wing. “Got it!”

Thomas blinked. Had there been an actual answer in there somewhere?

Anxiety straightened up and stared after Patton. “Morality, before you take off—and he’s already gone. Shouldn’t we figure out some kind of living arrangement _outside_ of Thomas’s house for the Duke to visit us in? _Before_ they get here?”

It took Thomas a second to understand what Anxiety was talking about. Then he jolted. “Oh yeah—uh, Logic, when you said that you were captured and Morality, Princey, and the Duke came to rescue you…did the Duke…”

Logan swallowed his mouthful and finished Thomas’s sentence, “…Severely injure the witch? I believe so. Morality was correct in the sense that it is very difficult for beings as small as we are to cause permanent harm to beings as large as you—to the point that we mostly prefer causing inconvenience in order to escape—but a sufficiently determined _and creative_ pixie can still cause significant damage.”

“Okay…” Thomas picked up his phone again. “Gotta go, Milady, I have to set up a pixie house in the garden before the pixie duke comes to call.”

**“Okay, call me back when…if you don’t call me back in six hours I’m coming over there, got it?”**

“No prob.” Thomas hung up. “So where do we start?”

* * *

The fallen tree was still there, but the broken house was gone.

It took all his self-control, but Patton didn’t check on the treasures he and Logan had hidden in the tree’s hollow after the storm was over. Instead he went to where the roots of the tree had been, looking for the burrow that had been there.

Logan had said Remus was still living within a hundred yards of the cave but had implied that he wasn’t still at the burrow itself—and one look at it told him why. When the tree went over it tore a supporting root out of the ceiling, and the burrow had fallen in after a couple days.

Patton took off from the collapsed burrow and started flying in ever-widening circles, staying low because night pixies preferred to make their homes underground or even underwater. Any hollow in the ground large enough to duck into was investigated.

Fifth hollow he checked, about twenty yards from the collapsed burrow, gave Patton the scare of his life: a snake was in it!

Or, it looked like a snake; after he got over the initial terrified shock, Patton realized that there was something wrong with it. Its head was barely moving and didn’t rise at Patton’s sudden arrival, and its body wasn’t moving at all. Squinting into the gloom, he realized its head didn’t _quite_ connect to its body.

This was a mimic.

And, now that he was thinking about it, Patton realized he knew a snake-mimicking pixie. “Hello there, Deceit!”

The snake’s green, black, and gold head opened into butterfly wings and the night pixie they belonged to stood up. “Greetingsss…Morality, was it?”

Patton dragged his attention away from the new scar on Deceit’s face. “Is Remus home?”

“It’s not completely outside the realm of possibility that he went out…” Deceit stepped away from the carefully woven tube of silk that was the body of his snake costume. “Why do you seek him?”

“Roman’s wings are damaged, and we want to see if Remus can repair them—since they’re twins, you know? See if some kind of mirror dance would work.”

“So the injured brother would become whole as a reflection of the other?” Deceit traced his chin thoughtfully. “I’ve _certainly_ heard of such a thing before.”

“Yeah, I haven’t either; it was in a fantasy movie, so who knows if it’ll actually work.”

Deceit smirked. “Has Roman been sneaking into human movie rooms again?”

Before Patton could answer a greenwing blur shot out of the dark and grabbed Patton. “Who has injured my brother?! I’ll kill ‘em! _I’m_ the only one allowed to beat up my brother!”

“It was the storm; I suspected even if Logan never said so directly,” Deceit told him, rolling his eyes. “And it died by itself of natural causes.”

Patton giggled nervously. Remus always made him a little nervous—a dark reflection of a pixie he loved. “So, um, we’ve got a theory that you can help heal Roman’s wings…”

“Take me to him!”

“Oh, don’t mind me, I’m not curious about this performance in the slightest,” Deceit put in—for once, doing a rather poor job of hiding his interest.

And that was when Patton remembered that Remus was creative enough to seriously injure a human, and had done so in the past for a pixie he only sort-of liked, and maybe telling him that Roman was living in a witch’s house wasn’t such a good idea. But it was way too late to back out now.

So, “Sure, you can both come!” Patton replied with a bright, too-wide smile—and he hoped that while he was gone, Thomas and the other pixies had managed to build a pixie house outside. Anxiety and Logan would have realized between them that such a thing would be needed if Remus was coming over.

Right?


	12. House Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An outdoor abode is constructed just in time for some guests.

Roman went completely hog-wild at the concept of designing his own house. He evidently had grand visions of an elaborate castle with towers for each of them, and tried to draw blueprints for it—but he collapsed from exhaustion almost halfway through the picture and Logan pointed out that they didn’t have time for anything too elaborate.

“It would be best to start with a stack of boxes, or something equally simple; we can make a palace out of it later, if you still want such a thing, after we have convinced your brother that Thomas is not a danger to us.”

Roman was disappointed, of course; so was Thomas, a little (a little palace in his garden sounded like it would be fun). But they both agreed that they didn’t really have much time.

Thomas was still thinking about that half-drawn palace while looking for suitable boxes in his shed…so when he saw the shadow of a castle on the wall, he was startled.

 _What?_ He turned to look for the shadows’ source and found a couple stacks of…

Plant pots. Not just any plant pots either: lusterware pots, good for growing magic plants.

Lusterware was on the list of acceptable building materials for a pixie.

The upside-down pots looked like little towers.

Perfect.

Thomas carefully picked up the dusty pots and carried them out. Three of them would provide rooms for the three day pixies—should he gather up some more, for guest rooms? Would Anxiety want one?

Logan fluttered over and stared at the pots. “Oh, those are nice; much better than boxes.”

“Yeah?” Thomas tilted one to study it. “I don’t know if you can chew doors in these—or if I’m okay with you chewing doors in these…”

“No need; when the objective is to hide the obvious approach is to leave the designated domicile as untouched as possible. Come—we’ve selected a place.” He fluttered off, slowly enough that Thomas could follow him.

The spot in question was, surprisingly enough, under Thomas’s workroom window; a simple glance up showed Anxiety’s webs. Anxiety himself was on the ground, though, visibly uneasy about being exposed in daylight but unwilling to leave the far less mobile Roman unattended. He looked relieved to see Thomas—and smirked at the gaudy pots.

“Looks like you get your castle after all, Princey.”

“What?” Roman looked up and gasped dramatically at the shiny lusterware. “Oh, magnificent!”

“The ground is loose enough here that we could easily burrow under the rims of the pots.” Logan landed on the sill. “If you set them over here, just under the window…”

“Triangle or pyramid?”

He hesitated, thinking. “…Either would require two pots directly against the wall.”

“Okay.” Adjusting his grip on the pots, he carefully put two of them down in the assigned spot.

Logan nodded approval. “Roman, suppose you’d managed to find your own way over here during the storm; the shape you were in, could you have climbed up a pyramid of these to hide under the cap?”

“Ye…uh…hm…” pausing, Roman looked at the two pots. Then he walked over and set his claws to the shiny surface of one. Less than ten seconds later he was perched on the edge. “Yes, I think I could have made such a climb that night. With some difficulty perhaps.”

Logan nodded again. “I suspect trying to dig under a rim would have resulted in much more severely damaged wings than you have; a triangle would result in far more explanations than we can give without directly involving Thomas.”

“I…don’t know if I would have even thought of tunneling, honestly,” Roman admitted. “Once knocked down in the rain, my first priority would be getting back _off_ the cold wet ground as quickly as possible.”

“Okay, pyramid it is.” Thomas held out the pot and cocked an inquiring eyebrow at Roman. “Wanna get down first, or do I put it on over you?”

“A moment…” Roman turned so his withered wings were over the space between the two pots. “You may proceed, Thomas.”

Carefully lining up the third pot, Thomas lowered it over Roman.

“Thank you, Thomas.” Logan looked around. “Now, as we do not know when Patton will be arriving with the Duke, it would be best if you returned yourself to the indoors while we finish setting the stage. Anxiety, if I might speak to you for a moment?”

Thomas went inside—and immediately went to his workroom window.

It appeared that what Logan had wanted to discuss with Anxiety was borrowing some of the night pixie’s webs. Tangled patches of silk were hanging down from the eaves, being carefully measured and cut by the two pixies and lowered to the ground.

_Oh, I get it—Roman would have started spinning his bedding the minute he got under cover._

Thomas decided he would watch for as long as he was able. Even if Patton and the Duke arrived while he was still at the window, the night pixie wouldn’t know of Anxiety’s secret entrance into the house and would only be able to ram the closed window (which itself had sigils to protect it from birds, and ought to work on pixies as well). It would be fine.

He hoped so at least.

* * *

Roman’s bedding was in place, Anxiety demonstrated his rapid digging skills to make tunnels under the other two pots (giving each an entrance, as well as connecting them with a little hallway), and Logan had even chosen and done some preliminary setup in his own pot. They were ready as they would ever be—and not a moment too soon.

“Three pixies incoming,” Anxiety reported, popping up from one of the tunnels to skitter up the wall and vanish into his webs.

Logan blinked. “ _Three_ pixies?” He slipped out his front door and looked out. There was Patton in the lead, half-escorting and half being dragged by Remus, and accompanying them was a yellow-winged…

 _Oh. You._ Logan disliked Deceit, but knew Remus had some fondness for the mimicking night pixie. And he did keep Remus out of trouble, for the most part.

Sighing, Logan cast Attention Dust on himself. Not a spell to be used when there were too many enemies around, it was most useful when the plan was to lure threats away from a vulnerable ally—or, as in this case, to attract an ally’s attention.

Remus registered Logan’s presence the instant before Patton did, and the dark duke shot ahead in a dive. Logan barely had time to brace before he found himself encased in a tight hug.

“TEACHER!!!”

“Greetings, Duke,” Logan managed, awkwardly patting Remus’s hip.

“It is excellent to see you, Logan.”

Logan eyed Deceit skeptically. He _could_ tell the truth—when it suited him—but was he doing so this time? It almost seemed impossible.

Patton fluttered down and gave Logan a warning look. _Be nice,_ it seemed to say. Then he dropped to the ground and attempted to examine-without-examining the new house.

Deceit looked up at the window. “Not surprising at all, that you would choose to dwell beside a witch’s house.” Looking back to observe the skepticism on Logan’s face he added, “Truly, the knowledge you can obtain about witches and how they use magic? Nirvana for an intellectual.”

Logan blinked. “Well…I suppose I ought to…compliment your insight at this point.”

“No risk at all being directly under the window, of course.”

And there was the lie—at least, _Deceit_ thought it was a lie. Logan smirked, contemplating possible reactions the night pixie might have to learning that it was actually true.

“Hallo, Prince!” Patton called. “We found your brother!”

Roman’s reply was muffled, but it was enough for Remus to identify his location. Immediately he let go of Logan and made to enter the highest pot.

Patton stopped him with a claw around the horn and looked him in the eye with his best Dad Stare. “ _Remus._ Your brother is not at his best right now and you will _not_ engage in any roughhouse that will make it worse. Understood?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Remus replied, _somehow_ managing to look servile and cheeky all at the same time.

Patton sighed in exasperation and let go.

Logan knelt next to the drainage hole and listened as Remus and Roman exchanged…very calm greetings, considering.

“So what’s the plan, pretty boy?”

“The idea is that we hold our wings together and…I guess magic jumps from the patterns on your wings to the matching patterns on my wings?”

“Incredibly sappy, totally boring…b’sides which, I dunno about you but I never did learn how to pose-cast magic.”

Roman grumbled. “Well, what do you suggest?”

Logan winced slightly at the undertone of hopelessness. Roman clearly felt that this was his last chance at functional wings.

Remus either didn’t register how Roman was feeling or chose to respond to it in a very…Remus fashion. “Mirror-dance magic, of course! Get the magic pumping, that’ll do it!”

It probably would, actually, but… “You would need far more space for that than the inside of a plant pot,” Logan called down, “And the yard cannot possibly be level enough for a land-bound mirror dance.” Not for six-inch pixies. They were taller than the grass, but it was still awkward to walk through; a dance, especially one that had to be flawlessly coordinated, would be impossible.

Remus grinned up at Logan. “I could hex the witch and we could use his workroom floor.”

Patton stuck his head up into Roman’s room. “You are _not_ hurting a second human, Remus!”

Deceit chuckled. “Oh yes, _this_ would be his second.”

Logan looked sharply at Deceit. He’d noticed the scar on the night pixie’s face but hadn’t given it any thought. Now…

“One may be chance and two may be coincidence, but I think we should avoid allowing that number to get any larger,” Logan replied. “However, the workroom could very well be available. A previous pixie bored a tunnel through the wall of this house, so it would be easy enough to check without being seen.”

Patton ducked out of the pot and flew past Logan and Deceit. “You’ve still got a lot of attention dust on you Lo, let me check.” He darted up into the eaves, singing a final, “I’ll be careful!”


End file.
